


A Wrench in the Machine

by withasideofangst



Series: The Mechanic 'Verse [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Advanced Idea Mechanics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parenting, Banter, Battle of New York (Marvel), Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Canonical Character Death, Deaf Clint Barton, Domestic Avengers, Doombots, Enemies to Friends, Extremis, Gen, Guilt, Hacking, Hydra (Marvel), Identity Issues, Identity Porn, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Inappropriate Humor, Kid Tony Stark, Kidnapped Tony Stark, Major Character Injury, Medical Conditions, No Porn, Not Canon Compliant, Palladium Poisoning, Past Brainwashing, Post-HYDRA Reveal, Pre-HYDRA Reveal, Protective Bucky Barnes, Rhodey Is a Good Bro, Secret Identity, The Tesseract (Marvel), Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Tony is a drama queen, Trust, Trust Issues, and then a final kick in the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2018-07-16 14:20:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 54,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7271731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withasideofangst/pseuds/withasideofangst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is barely four years old when Howard and Maria Stark are killed in a car accident, engineered by Hydra.</p>
<p>The youngest Stark was supposed to die as well, but when he doesn't, Hydra realizes they can use the young genius.</p>
<p>Thus begins the story of the nameless hacker known only as 'The Mechanic,' who builds his first weapon at the age of four, Iron Man at the age of ten, and hacks the Avengers at the age of fourteen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Iron in the Man

**Author's Note:**

> (Important note: I'm taking liberties with the timeline here. Try not to worry about it, and enjoy the story. ^^ The biggest changes are Tony's age when his parents are killed, and for Tony's age to be accurate to the year The Avengers came out, Tony would have been born around 1998 and his parents killed in 2002.)
> 
> This story has a couple chapters which jump around slightly in time, because I felt that they wouldn't be as interesting in strict chronological order.
> 
> (Forgive me, the pronouns might be a bit hard to read in the beginning here until everyone introduces themselves.)

“Hey, can we at least get some music in here?  Seriously, guys, I know you lackeys are supposed to be guarding me, but I’m about to die of boredom back here, c’mon, can we--”

Over the incessant rambling, one soldier glanced over at his partner in the seat next to him.  Both wore equally blank expressions, but their eyes were screaming for someone to put them out of the misery.

Or to just take out the target of their guarding mission.

“Seriously,” the soldier mumbled, “how is a ten-year-old important enough to put up with this?”

“I wonder whose kid he is,” his partner mumbled back.

“I feel sorry for his parents,” the first soldier replied.

“Are we even sure he’s ten?  He looks more like--”

The soldier didn’t get to finish his sentence before the first IDE went off, taking out the humvee in front of them.

\---

In an instant, his world went from mentally torturing a few hired soldiers to fire and shooting, and after the soldiers in his humvee (which was no longer the “funvee,” and oh boy was he going to be lodging complaints about this with  _ someone _ and  _ everyone _ when he returned) got shot, all he could do was wrestle his way over one of the guards and sneak around the back of the humvee, trying to figure out where the attack was coming from.

He pulled out his phone - which  _ of course _ had signal, because he was  _ good _ at what he did, excuse you - to call for help and complain about the horrendous fuck up that this demonstration had turned into-- when he didn’t even  _ want _ to be presenting a demonstration, he had been about to turn on SNOW-- but the call was never completed.

A missile landed next to him, bearing the bright white logo of Stane Industries, and the only thing he had time to do was think,  _ oh shit _ , before it detonated, sending him crashing onto his back, blood starting to sprout from his chest.

\---

The first time he woke up to find wires sticking out of a hole in his chest, and his entire world on  _ fire _ with pain, he only had the sense of mind to scream before a felt a prick in his arm and he was unconscious again.

Waking up the second time was barely less unpleasant.

“Don’t move,” an older man said, sitting over him.

He struggled to his elbows anyway, only to see the wires and gaping hole in his chest weren’t part of his nightmare.

“What did you  _ do to me _ ?”  He demanded.

The man introduced himself as Yinsen, and began to explain what little he could.

Yinsen didn’t know why a ten-year-old had been kidnapped, he had only been thrown in a room with him bleeding out on a table and told to save his life.

He wasn’t sure if he was grateful or not, at the moment.

\---

“I am sorry we are meeting under these circumstances, Tony Stark,” a voice said, and abruptly the black bag was pulled off of his face, causing him to blink several times to refocus his eyes.

He was in a cave with Yinsen nowhere in sight, and with all the lack of decent accommodations-- or, you know,  _ air conditioning _ \-- that that entailed, and he shook his head, trying to orient himself.  On reflex, he flexed his arms, but as tightly as he was tied to the hard wooden chair beneath him, and with the  _ car battery _ still hooked into his chest, none of the basic training he’d received would be useful unless he wanted to break a thumb.

And he’d  _ really _ prefer not to break a thumb.  That  _ hurt _ , and his chest hurt plenty already.

“... But I’m afraid your  _ handlers _ made it rather hard to reach you through more conventional means,” his kidnapper had continued.

He blinked and squinted until he could make out the face of the bald man standing in front of him.

“I don’t know who the hell you are,” he began, forcing bravado into his voice, young and wiry as it was, “but I’m afraid you’ve kidnapped the wrong child genius.  I feel bad for that sucker, though.  Who the hell is Tony Stark?”

The man’s expression barely changed, but he could read the man’s surprise.

“My name is Raza,” the man-- Raza-- began.  “And I work for an organization called the Ten Rings.  As for Tony Stark, you  _ are _ Stark.  I have to admit, even I never predicted they wouldn’t even tell you who you really are.”

Raza shook his head.

His patience snapped.

“Look, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, who never said  _ what _ ?  If you think you’re making sense, you’re even dumber than I thought.  Do you  _ know _ who I work for?”

Raza’s eyes narrowed, and he had time to think,  _ whoops, don’t piss off the terrorist! _

“Yes, Tony Stark, I know who you are, and who you work for.  But apparently  _ you _ do not.”

“For the last time, my name is  _ not _ Tony Stark.  And are you going to tell me what the hell is going on here or is that not in your evil monologuing plans?”

Raza smiled what he probably thought was a parental smile, but it just made his skin crawl.

“It is simple: Your name is Tony Stark.  And the organization you work for-- the people who raised you-- is not SHIELD.  It is called Hydra.”

\---

“You’re fucking crazy,” he said, when Raza’s explanation was over.

“Oh?”  Raza raised an eyebrow.  “Then why don’t you have a name?”

“I just  _ don’t _ ,” he protested.  “So I gave myself my own name, so what?  That doesn’t prove your conspiracy theory about SHIELD and Hydra.   _ Or _ that my parents were the Starks.  I mean, I’ve hacked Stane Industries’ servers, I know their old weapon designs were halfway decent, but I can do better in my sleep.  I mean,  _ come on _ .  Have you  _ seen _ how volatile some of that stuff is?  I’m surprised some of that stuff didn’t explode and suck in a building, or something.”

Raza hid his irritation well, but that didn’t mean he missed it.

“ _ The Mechanic _ is not a name, it is a title,” Raza replied smoothly, “and no matter what hacker handle you come up with, no one doesn’t have a name.  But I have proof of all of this, if you refuse to take my word for it.”

He scoffed.  “If that’s too long a name for you, call me Nic.  Not that I want to be anywhere near you for long...no offense,” he added, belatedly remembering to not  _ completely _ piss off the terrorist.  ”But if you have proof, try opening with that next time.  What is this magical proof you’re going to show me?”

Raza said something sharply in a different language to one of the guards standing just outside of the cave-room they were in, and the man returned with a file that Raza dropped in Nic’s lap, then neatly sliced through the rope binding his arms to the chair.

“The name of the assassin Hydra used to kill your parents.”

Suddenly Nic didn’t want to know.  The folder seemed to gain weight in his lap.

_ Don’t say it _ , he thought.

“He codename is the Winter Soldier.”

_ Well shit _ , Nic thought.   _ Yasha isn’t going to like this _ .

\---

When Nic finished reading the file, he couldn’t really object to Raza’s version of events anymore.

The fact that the file had both SHIELD’s logo stamped all over it, and security codes that Nic  _ knew _ were valid because he’d coded the encryption, helped his case a lot.

The first few pages of the file were vague on the details of the assassination of Howard and Maria Stark, but which included photographs of the couple, and Nic had to admit there was an eerie resemblance there.  Then there was a second set of papers which had Hydra’s symbol on them, which Nic recognized from older SHIELD mission files that he hadn’t paid much attention to.  Except those files reported that Hydra had been destroyed after the second world war.

The Hydra files contained more details, which revealed that Hydra had gained intel that Ten Rings was going to kidnap the Starks, and decided to beat them to the punch and assassinate the weapons developer and his family.

Except, from what he could tell from the file, the asset they sent - the Winter Soldier - had “malfunctioned” and not killed the Stark child, who had been nearly four at the time.  The file referenced the asset being “recalibrated”-- and Nic had known him long enough to know what  _ that _ meant-- and the kid was given a different, lesser form of programming to keep him from looking into his origins.

There were more details in the files, but by the end of it, Nic believed Raza.

He  _ was _ this “Tony Stark,” and he had parents to avenge, even if he didn’t remember them.

But first, he had a friend to save, and a lesson to teach--  _ no one _ kidnaps the infamous hacker known only as the Mechanic.

Or Tony Stark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before Tony accepts who he is, he will refer to himself as Nic, mostly in the first couple chapters. After, he will be Tony again. Sorry for the confusion until that straightens itself out!
> 
> (Holy crap, I just looked at my doc for this - it has just under 12k words already, and I've only actually typed out three chapters, the rest is all notes or scenes to be edited.)


	2. The Child of Hydra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashback! Nic is six in this chapter.

The first time Nic saw the Soldier, he was in a part of the facility that he wasn’t, strictly speaking, allowed to be in.

In his defense, Nic was bored.

This wasn’t unusual for him by any means, although most of SHIELD had quickly realized that allowing Nic to be bored usually ended with something exploding.

If they were lucky, it would just be some _ thing _ and not some _ one _ .

(Not that Nic meant to hurt anyone, but apparently blinking red lights and beeping noises weren’t always enough warning to get back, who knew?  Nic entirely blamed the agents for being stupid.)

In any case, he maintained that if he wasn’t supposed to be somewhere, that area should be locked.

Well.

Locked  _ better _ .  He had designed most of SHIELD’s systems, after all.  They couldn’t exactly be expected to keep  _ him _ out, unless SHIELD’s miserable lackies finally grew a collective brain and figured out how to improve on his tech.

Nic had been wandering down a hall when he heard a commotion.  He followed the sound in time to see a man being half-dragged across a room.  The man was pale and shivering, and had small icicles melting in his long, matted brown hair.

The man didn't struggle as two men in white coats strapped him into an odd-looking metal chair, and when they moved out of the way, Nic had to suppress a gasp.

The man had a  _ metal arm _ .

Nic wondered if it was Christmas come early.  All he knew was, he was definitely getting his hands on that arm.

Then one of the agents caught sight of him, and he was ordered to step forward.

“Oh, if it isn’t our little genius,” the bossman, Secretary Pierce, said, and Nic squashed his instinct to grimace.  He was  _ six _ , not a baby, like everyone seemed to treat him.  His IQ was probably higher than the entire room’s put together.

“You’ve never seen the asset until now, have you?”  Pierce asked, and Nic shook his head, unable to take his eyes off the pale man, shivering in his seat.

“You’re in for a treat.  He’s usually in storage, so this is the first time he’s been awake in this decade.  Nic, meet the Winter Soldier.  The finest piece of Cold War technology still in use.”

Nic didn’t hear Pierce’s monologue.  He was too busy staring at the  _ magnificent _ metal arm fused to his torso.

His fingers itched.

The walls of SHIELD facilities were rather good at absorbing noise, and if shortly after being dismissed and thrown out of the room, Nic thought he heard screaming, well-- it wasn’t that unusual a sound at the base.

After all, secret spy agencies had to be ruthless sometimes in order to protect the world.  They’d taught him that well.

He rubbed the small burns and scars that his own training had left on his arms, and got back to the weapon design he was working on.

\---

The first time the Soldier and Nic actually exchanged words was several weeks later, after the Soldier had put three technicians in the hospital and another had to be retired due to his injuries.  One of the three injured agents hadn't even been intentional, just caused by the reflexes of the metal arm when the Soldier was in pain during maintenance sessions, which seemed to be the norm.

It had taken longer than Nic expected to wear down the bossman, but finally he was given permission to perform repairs on the metal arm instead of the  _ idiots _ currently holding the job.

When the permission was granted, however, it was on the usual condition than the process not be at all comfortable for the Soldier.

Nic had managed to keep his face still, but behind his back, his hands made small fists as he agreed, fingernails digging into his palms.

When he did a job, he did it  _ right _ .  That didn’t include causing unnecessary pain.

Regardless, none of the warnings from several agents affected Nic’s determination to get his hands on the metal arm.

“Hey, Snowman,” Nic said easily as he walked into the room, not betraying how excited he was that weeks of harassing the bossman had finally yielded the desired result.

(It was worth it, even though he’d had to refer to the bossman as “Uncle Pierce.”  Nic repressed a shudder.  He built the man weapons and managed his systems and everything, but he gave off a creepy vibe sometimes.  He wasn’t as bad as the idiot they made Nic work with sometimes, however.  He would  _ never _ refer to that idiot as “Uncle Hammer,” no matter  _ what _ they did to him.)

“I'll be your new mechanic from now on,” Nic continued, “so how's this? You try not to hurt me, I'll try not to hurt you. Deal?”

The Soldier stared at his outstretched hand.

Nic sighed.

“Fine, leave me hanging.  Okay, let's get started anyway.  Please try not to kill me, I'm just going to take a look around.”

\---

Nic had to pry open several panels before he could get inside the arm itself, and when he saw the inner workings, he immediately started cursing.

“Hey you.  Yeah, Tall-and-Dumb in the agent suit.  Hold this.  Hey!  Yes it's hot, you big baby, don't just drop it!  Jeez, who's the six year old here?  Ugh, you're useless, just get out.  He’s strapped down, he’s not going to hurt me, and you just standing there is lowering the IQ of the room… There, that’s better.  Hey, Human Popsicle, if I release your other hand, think you can hold this steady?  Okay, I'm gonna do it.  Please don't kill me…”

Nic released the Soldier’s flesh-and-bone arm and waited.

At first he didn’t move, then when Nic gestured for him to hold a tiny wire out of the way again, the man carefully reached over and complied.

When Nic first snipped a wire that was practically disintegrating with age, to his surprise, the Soldier winced, and the arm flinched slightly.  Nic had been startled by the reaction and nearly gave himself a soldiering burn, before turning his head to meet the Soldier’s eyes.

Or to try to - it took nearly a minute for the man to meet his gaze.

“Did I hurt you?”  He whispered, still mindful of the order he’d been given and the agents just outside the door.

The Winter Soldier’s face shifted into confusion for a moment before he glanced towards the door, then finally shook his head every so slightly.

“Did you expect to be hurt?”  Nic asked quietly again, knowing what the answer would be.

Sure enough, the Soldier gave the barest nod.

Unexpectedly, Nic felt a flare of anger in his chest.

“Yeah, they told me to do the same.”

The Soldier flinched minutely again, and Nic scowled.

“How about this:  I promise to make it hurt as little as possible, and you pretend I’m hurting you more than the other idiots who they had doing this.  Deal?”

The Soldier stared at him silently for so long, Nic began to worry the man would rat him out.  Until -

“Deal,” the Winter Soldier said, his voice hoarser than Nic had ever heard.

It sounded like he’d barely spoken in half a century, Nic thought idly, as he got back to work.

“...  _ Jesus Christ _ , I know whoever built this wasn't  _ me _ , but how stupid do you have to be to put the power supply  _ there _ ?...”

\---

“I need something to call you other than the Soldier,” Nic said one day, after yet another mission made more repairs of the arm necessary.  Not that Nic was complaining, although the occasionally fake winces from the Soldier made his job slightly harder.

“The asset does not need a name,” the man repeatedly tonelessly.

Nic shook his head.

“Everyone needs a name.  C’mon, I picked one for myself, you can do the same.”

His suggestion was met with yet another blank stare, and Nic sighed.

He liked the guy, but the Soldier wasn’t exactly a good converser, and every so often he seemed to forget conversations they’d had.  Nic had even had to remind the Soldier of their deal once or twice, although now it seemed to be sticking better, even when he forgot other things, and the Soldier hadn’t forgotten who Nic was in several months.

“I’ve heard some of the agents talking to you in Russian.  Do you want a Russian name?”  Nic asked.

There was silence for long enough that Nic started to think he wasn’t going to get an answer, again.  But finally--

“The asset has been designated ‘Yasha’ on missions before,” the Soldier replied, hesitating, as if he didn’t trust his faulty memory.

Nic gave the man a grin which usually made any agents in the vicinity nervous, and received more blinks of surprise in return.

“Yasha it is, then,” he said, and dove back into the repairs.

\---

Nic liked Yasha more and more with each repair session, although at first he was not sure the feeling was returned.

Then Nic pissed off an agent who was assigned to SHIELD’s systems security team by blowing holes in his pitiful attempts to improve on Nic’s work, and the agent responded by tripping Nic.

It probably would have gone unnoticed, except the agent did it at the top of a flight of stairs.

Nic had time to panic, waving his arms in a futile attempt to catch his balance or the railing, before a hand reached out and caught the back of his shirt, hauling him backwards until he tumbled backward onto the floor, unharmed.

He glanced up, mouth gaping and in shock, to find Yasha holding the agent against the wall by his neck.  The agent’s feet scrambled in the hair as he scratched at the metal arm holding him off the ground.

Nic stared, frozen, before his brain restarted and he scrambled to his feet, looking around.

“Stop!”  He ordered, knowing the halls wouldn’t be deserted for long.

Yasha’s grip released at once, and the agent crumpled to the ground, gasping unattractively.

The Soldier turned to face Nic.

“He tried to hurt you,” he said tonelessly, but Nic could see the fury in his eyes.

Nic blinked.  Yasha didn’t usually show much emotion at all.

“Yeah, he did,” Nic said, sparing a moment to scowl at the waste of brain cells in question, “but I doubt you’re supposed to kill him without orders.  And,” he added, walking over and prodding the agent in the shin with his boot, “in return for  _ not being dead _ , Agent Dipshit over here isn’t going to say anything about this to anybody.  Right?”

The agent scowled back, but one look at the Soldier made him swallow heavily.

“Right,” he said, and scampered.

Nic watched him go with disdain, before looking back at Yasha, who was watching him almost-blankly again.

But this time, there was still a lingering flicker of fury and concern in the man’s eyes.

Nic almost cracked a smile.

“Thanks, Yasha,” he said.  “My own personal hero.  Now let’s get you back to wherever you’re supposed to be before anyone notices you’re gone, okay?”

He let Yasha lead, following on his heels, and couldn’t hide his grin, even when Yasha glanced back and seemed surprised by it.

He wondered if this is what it was to have a  _ friend _ , as he kept hearing about when he watched security footage of other SHIELD facilities.

None of the agents at this facility seemed nearly so  _ nice--  _ or not useless, at least-- so he’d never even tried to befriend one of them.

He found that he rather liked it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aiming for weekly updates or even more often, if I can kick my lazy muse's ass into gear more often.
> 
> Your reactions are what drive me to keep doing this, and for those of you who read my other fics too-- thank you! I notice when I see the same username giving me kudos on multiple fics, and I really appreciate it, and all the comments. I'm really glad you guys are taking the time to read this!


	3. Iron, Forged in Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Quick note: the 20 chapters listed currently is an estimate. I've skeletoned the whole fic, so it shouldn't be far off, but it might have a few more chapters, since I'm finding that one or two might be better broken off in the middle and done as separate chapters. Plus I have a few ideas for "bonus" chapters, if people end up being interested, with scenes I really like but which, for various reasons, are not going to make it into the main story.)

Nic knew he had to escape-- and take Yinsen with him as thanks for saving his life-- but there was one minor obstacle.

Oh, not the armed terrorists.  That was the easy part.

The car battery in his chest was slightly more problematic.

Luckily, Nic had been bored a lot at SHIELD-- at  _ Hydra _ .

And Nic’s favorite pastime when he was bored was hacking.

So when Nic had to think of something which could power an electromagnet indefinitely to keep the shrapnel out of his heart, he knew of a solution.

Yinsen was, to say the least, a little nervous, but also excited.

“You want to miniaturize Stane Industries’ arc reactor?”

Nic grinned, having already started to cannibalize one of the missiles Raza had delivered, promising Nic that he would exact vengeance on Hydra on Nic’s behalf, in exchange for weapons.

Nic had to admit that the deal would be tempting, if he a) trusted the terrorist farther than he could throw him-- which wasn’t that far, since he was a hacker and an engineer, not an athlete-- and b) hadn’t been kidnapped.

He was a genius, but apparently had been brainwashed and duped into working for nazis.  He wasn’t feeling particularly trusting  _ or _ forgiving.

“Why not?”  Nic asked, removing part of the missile and tossing another section over his shoulder.

He didn’t notice Yinsen’s wince at the sound the metal made when it hit the stone floor behind Nic.

“It’s not the first time I’ve improved on their designs.  At least when it was still Stark Industries, it was a bit more of a challenge.  Now it’s just child’s play.  Stane’s got this new guy, Vanko, but he’s got nothing on Stark, or me.”

Nic froze, realizing what he’d just said.

Yinsen watched the boy, his expression grave.

“I overheard some of the guards talking.  Mr Stark… was your father,” he said.

Nic nodded, even though it hadn’t been phrased as a question.

“That’s… what it looks like.”

He unfroze, picking up a tiny component of the missile, and he grinned at the tiny part.

“What is that?”  Yinsen stepped closer, looking over Nic’s skinny shoulders.

“That,” Nic replied, “is palladium.  0.15 grams.  We need at least 1.6, so why don’t you start breaking down the others?”

\---

“Are you sure this is going to work?”  Yinsen asked, for the fifth time.

Nic rolled his eyes for the fifth time.

“Hey, the arc reactor worked,” he replied, rapping his knuckles against the glowing circle in his chest.  “Both of them.”

Yinsen glanced down at the second reactor, glowing brightly in the center of the metal suit of armor.  It and its twin were the product of two dozen Stane Industries missiles-- the price of which had been a Jericho missile, modeled after one which, Nic admitted to Yinsen, he’d designed for Hydra.

“I have never fired a weapon before,” Yinsen muttered.  “Are you sure you should not be the pilot?”

Nic grimaced.

“Yeah, no, with the parts on hand,” he gestured disparagingly at their surroundings, “there’s no way I could make a suit small enough for me to pilot it.  You’ll have to do.  Just don’t shoot me by accident, okay?”  He made the last few adjustments and stepped back, waiting for the suit to finish powering on.

There was a knock at the door, and both prisoners paled.

Nic glanced to the door and back to Yinsen, out of sight.  Their eyes met for a moment, and then Nic grinned.  It was wide, showed a lot of teeth, and looked real, but Yinsen knew it was absolutely not.

“I’ll keep our guests busy.  Do me a favor and feel free to step in as soon as you can, yeah?  If you get us both out of here, I’ll make you CEO of my company.”  Nic said, for all the world sounding like he was about to go entertain guests at a high-class party, and sauntered off towards the door.

“Hey, buddy.  What brings you to my humble abode?  Let me tell you  _ all _ about this new idea I had for a missile that will make the Jericho look like a child’s toy…”

Yinsen clenched his fists, encased in metal, and waited for the progress bar denoting the suit’s power levels to fill.

\---

“Oh god, please don’t ever make me do that again,” Yinsen wheezed, standing a short distance away from the wreckage of the terrorists’ camp.

Nic was grinning.

“Are you kidding?  That was  _ awesome _ .  Are you sure you got them all?  I can make it look like the Jericho malfunctioned, but if anyone’s still alive Ten Rings will know we escaped, and then  _ Hydra _ will know we escaped.”

Yinsen nodded, still panting for breath.  Wearing a suit of metal in the middle of the desert wasn’t exactly chilly, and wielding flamethrowers didn’t help.

“There is no one left alive in the caves or the tents,” he managed.

Nic nodded.

“Good,” he said.  “Then we both died here today.  I guess that makes twice, for Tony Stark.”

Nic made a few final adjustments to the faulty Jericho, and then both retreated to a safe distance and Nic pressed the small trigger he held.

They walked away from the camp with only flames and scorched bodies left behind, and just enough DNA left behind, in the form of blood,  to make anyone examining the scene certain of their deaths.  When they were a safe enough distance to fly, shakily, but low enough to avoid detection.

As they flew, Nic made a mental note to ensure they didn’t leave a DNA trail behind in the future.

\---

“Colonel Rhodes,” the soldier began, and the man in question barely held back a groan.

It was too early for this, whatever  _ this _ was.

“Yes, Private?  What is it?”

“There’s someone on the line for you, Sir.  He says he needs to talk to Stane Industries’ military liaison.”

The colonel sighed.

The job had given him nothing but trouble, and he didn’t even  _ like _ Obadiah Stane or Ivan Vanko.

“Did he say what this is about?”

The soldier frowned slightly.

“Something about an explosion in Afghanistan,” he replied, and Colonel Rhodes quickly picked up the phone.

“Sir?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to make it clear, Colonel Rhodes is his normal age, and, of course, has never met Tony Stark.


	4. Men of Iron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I just realized how most of the chapter titles so far have the word Iron in them. Oops. That's not the case later, I promise.

Nic directed Yinsen to fly them towards three Hydra safe houses, which they promptly emptied of cash and weapons and food, before the suit finally gave a few half-hearted splutters and died, having taken significant damage in their escape and not having been built for long-term use.

By then, the cash was quite enough to get them new clothes and a motel room with a shower.

Yinsen was the one to bring up the issue of his lack of identification papers, but Nic scoffed.

“I’m a hacker.  Do you really think I haven’t met anyone who can make forgeries better than an original?  I already called in a favor.  We’ll have new IDs in two days.”

Nic didn’t even look up from his laptop screen-- another new purchase.

Three days later, their plane landed in New York, and Nic directed Yinsen towards a penthouse apartment just outside the city.

Yinsen dropped his bag inside the door and stared around, open-mouthed.

“Nic, we can’t afford a place like this,” he protested, turning to meet the boy’s eyes.

Nic just smirked.

“I was raised by  _ spies _ .  I have money hidden away that Hydra will never trace back to me.  It won’t last forever, but it’s plenty to get started.”

Yinsen frowned.

“Get started with what?  I never expected to escape those caves.  How have you already come up with a plan?”

Nic opened his laptop again, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the couch, plush and comfortable in the middle of their fully-furnished living room.

“Genius, remember?  Of course I have a plan.  First, I’m going to start my own company, and you’re going to be the CEO.  Then I’m going to rebuild the suit so I can pilot it, and I’m going to destroy Hydra, starting with every weapon I ever built for them.”

The look on Nic’s face could have made a demon rethink his life choices and flee for his life, but Yinsen’s only thought was that ten years old was far too young to have need for such an expression.

“... I don’t doubt you’ll succeed,” he said quietly, and Nic’s vicious grin grew a little smaller, and a little less evil.

“First thing’s first,” Nic continued, his fingers resuming their flight over the keys.  “You’re going to need a suit, and fast, ‘cause your first meeting with potential investors in our new smartphone is scheduled for next week…”

\---

Within a week, Arc Industries had a dozen investors, and Nic’s first smartphone design was a massive success, scheduled to be released within six months.  The investors released a short promotion announcing the new phone, and if the public response was any indicator, the phone was going to outsell any other phone on the market.

Yinsen was kept busy, as the public face of the tiny company, and he quickly hired several employees to help with legal work and other business-related jobs that Nic couldn’t be bothered with, as well as an assistant named Virginia Potts, who Nic met once, and promptly dubbed “Pepper” for her freckles and fiery personality and red hair.  The name stuck.

Nic spent all his time in his workshop, which had been moved from his room in their penthouse apartment to a basement of an abandoned Stark Industries warehouse which he bought and promptly decked out in technology and security systems.  When Yinsen walked into the workshop a few days later and saw three robots built like claw-tipped arms with cameras embedded in their claw-heads, which Nic introduced as Dummy 2.0, You, and Butterfingers, Yinsen’s only inquiry was why Dummy was “Dummy 2.0.”

A shadow crossed Nic’s face.

“Someone who thought he was smarter than me ended up destroying Dummy 1.0 back at Hydra,” he muttered darkly.

Yinsen didn’t bring it up again.

An additional week went by, and Yinsen began reading about how a suit of armor was seen destroying suspected weapons caches around the world.  A few of the locations, he recognized Nic having referred to as belonging to Hydra.

The media dubbed the suit of armor “Iron Man,” and Yinsen sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.

Sure enough, Nic came bouncing into his office in the penthouse less than ten minutes later.

“Did you see it?”  He asked, beaming.  “I mean, technically, it’s not iron, it’s a gold-titanium alloy, but it’s not like they know that, and I have to admit it’s catchier.”

He came to a halt before Yinsen’s desk, and met the man’s eyes expectantly.

Yinsen gave the boy genius a smile that was only a little strained.

“It looks like you’re a superhero now,” he said, and was happy to see boy’s eyes dance.

“I am Iron Man,” Nic mumbled, and nodded, satisfied.  “Yeah, that’ll do just fine.”

Yinsen just smiled back, pushing away his concern for the boy.

Nic launched into a description of all the improvements to the suit which he was planning, and didn’t notice Yinsen shuffle a few papers around on his desk, hiding them from view.

Only one corner poked out, but Nic didn’t notice it.

_ New York City Cancer Institute _ , the letterhead read.

\---

There was a knock at the door.  Three sharp but polite taps, then silence as Yinsen stood and walked over.

“Please come in, Miss Potts,” he said, and the woman walked in quickly, heels clacking sharply against the smooth floor of his office.

The red-haired woman was plainly concerned but not nervous, and Yinsen made another mental mark in her favor-- she was confident enough to know her skill and worth, and so was confident, correctly, that she was not there to be reprimanded.

That meant, however, that she had no idea why she  _ was _ there.

She waited for him to speak, and he circled back around his desk before doing so.

“I want to make you CEO of Arc Industries,” Yinsen declared, not wasting words.

Again, to her credit, the woman barely blinked.

“Excuse me?”  She asked, frowning slightly.  “Arc Industries is new, but is well on track to become one of the largest grossing companies in the country within a few years.  Why would you step down now?”

Her eyes sharpened, suddenly, and her gaze drifted over him, searching.

“What’s wrong?”

Yinsen gave a tiny half-smile, and her gaze focused on it, then returned to his eyes.

“I was just diagnosed,” he said, picking up the letter from his doctor’s office confirming the diagnosis and the treatment plan-- or lack thereof.  “I… haven’t been able to see a doctor in some time, so we caught it too late.  I have had to put a lot of thought into who will keep Arc Industries going after I die, and you are the most qualified person for the job.”

Miss Potts scanned the letter quickly before meeting his gaze again.

“Not that I am not honored, but wouldn’t the job go to the engineer you’ve been keeping under wraps?  I appreciate the show of trust, but you haven’t even told me who he or she is, so clearly there is someone you trust more than me.  Or did you already ask, and they didn’t want the job?”

Yinsen’s slight smile turned into more of a grimace.

“I haven’t told the engineer yet, but I already know they are not interested in the business side of things.  If you accept the position, they will continue to pass their inventions on to you.  I hope they will agree to come forward and speak with you directly, but I do hope you understand that there are reasons for not doing so.  It is not a matter of trust-- at least, not my trust.”

Yinsen spread his hands in apology, and Miss Potts nodded slightly in acceptance.

“Until then, I can give you an email to reach them with, if you agree?”

He stood, and she mimicked him.  In her heels, she stood more than an inch taller.

“If that’s the case… I will need time to think about it,” she said, and Yinsen nodded his acceptance.  He wouldn’t expect any less.

Just before she turned to leave, a frown crossed her face, and Yinsen raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

“If I do accept… What will happen with your son, and your shares in the company?”  She asked, with only the slightest hesitation before referring to Nic as his son.

Yinsen froze for a second, before realizing the term had become true, for him at least.  He was never quite sure about what was going on inside the genius’ head.

His unexpected, not-quite-official  _ son’s _ head.

Yinsen guessed his thoughts must have shown on his face, as Miss Potts’s eyes and face softened in response to whatever was showing on his own.

“Nic already has his own shares,” Yinsen answered, “and mine would go to you.  Between the two of you, you’ll have controlling interest in the company, so if you ever need absolute authority, I’m confident you’ll have his support and the weight of his shares behind you, despite his age.”

She nodded.

“Will that be all, then?”  She asked, and he smiled again.

“That will be all, Miss Potts.  Thank you.”

As he watched her retreating back, he couldn’t help but wish telling Nic was going to be half as simple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made up the NYCCI for this fic. And yes, I am a horrible person for doing that to Yinsen, and I feel bad for him, but that’s not going to stop me from doing it anyway. :( It was how I saw the story playing out for things to happen the way I want them to later.
> 
> If it's any consolation, the next chapter is much kinder!


	5. A Helping Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nic is eleven in this chapter. It’s a little over a year since Nic and Yinsen’s escape from the caves in Afghanistan.

Nic slid down the wall, probably dirtying his shirt and pants as his butt hit the ground, but he didn’t care.

He crossed his arms over his knees, drawing them to his chest, and sobbed quietly into the fabric of his jeans.

No one bothered him while he cried, because this was New York-- no one gave a second look to someone half-hidden from the road, in a dark alley, crumpled next to a dumpster.

It just reminded him even more that he was alone now.

Nic sat there for long enough that he eventually fell asleep, still curled into a tight ball.

He woke to a hand shaking him awake.

Nic flinched away from the gentle touch, sliding away along the wall, scratching his back on the brick wall through the light cotton of his t-shirt.  He didn’t trust  _ gentle _ .  Even Yinsen hadn’t been exactly gentle, hardened by the same experiences as Nic.  He had respected Nic’s general aversion to touch, which had started before Afghanistan and only grew worse after, particularly since he’d discovered that the arc reactor in his chest, which kept him alive, was also poisoning him.

“Hey, easy, easy,” the owner of the hand said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender.

Nic eyed the man suspiciously.

Dark skin, dark eyes shining with a concern that Nic didn’t trust, and a plain but clean jacket, shirt and pants.  He could be anyone.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” the man continued.  “Where are your parents?”

Nic’s eyes narrowed, and he slowly reached one hand behind him, into his back pocket.  The man didn’t seem to notice.

“Leave me alone,” he half-growled, edging further away from the man again, even though it put him further from the entrance to the alley.

If the man tried to attack him, or-- more likely, judging by the stranger’s demeanor-- insisted on finding his parents, and probably calling the police, Nic wasn’t defenseless, even without his suit.

He caught himself hoping the man didn’t make him prove it.  The guy seemed normal.  Nice.

“Hey, it’s okay,” the man reuttered.  “My name is James Rhodes.  I’m a colonel in the Marines, and I’m not going to hurt you.  I just want to help.”

Nic eyed the man, Colonel Rhodes, still doubtful.

“I’m not telling you anything,” Nic said.

Colonel Rhodes sighed.

“Okay.  Will you at least let me buy you a meal?”

Nic kept a smirk off his face.

There was no way the colonel could know that he already had more money than a career military man could probably hope to make in a decade.

Unless they were dirty, of course.

Still, all Nic had to look forward to was an empty penthouse apartment and the unfinished projects in his workshop.

“Fine,” Nic replied, slowly taking his hand out of his back pocket, but still not fully relaxing.  “Lead the way.”

Colonel Rhodes smiled and turned to exit the alley, Nic following a short distance behind.

They didn’t walk far, entering a small diner down the block and around the corner.

The colonel waited for Nic to sit first, scooting over into one side of a booth, then he did the same on the other side.

Nic sat quietly, staring up at him, fidgeting slightly, but he repressed any urge to blink.  He’d found it made people uncomfortable, and he took every advantage he could.

The colonel hid it well, but Nic could tell it was working on him, too.

“So, you won’t tell me who your parents are.  Or maybe you don’t have any,” Colonel Rhodes said, and Nic’s hand was halfway to his chest, ready to tap on the arc reactor which was hidden under a thick layer of fake skin along with the circuit board-like poison marks, before he caught himself and pulled his arm back down.

It was a habit he’d formed, but it was a tell.  He couldn’t let himself show it to others.

“Could you at least give me a name to call you?”

Nic frowned, and debated for a moment, then licked his lips, making a decision.

“My name is Tony,” he said.

Colonel Rhodes smiled.

“Thanks, Tony.  My friends call me Rhodey.  You can too, if you’d like.”

Nic snorted.

“No offense,  _ Rhodey _ , but I don’t exactly plan on being around you long enough to become your friend.”

The waitress walked over, interrupting, and Nic broke his stare to glance down long enough to read the menu and order a cheeseburger and fries.

“Get him a milkshake too,” Rhodey added, after giving his own order for another burger and fries.  “Chocolate?”  He asked Nic.

Nic nodded, and the waitress left.

There was a pause, and this time Nic found it a little harder to meet Rhodey’s eyes.

“It’s okay,” Rhodey said, and Nic frowned.  “I know I’m probably just another nosy adult to you right now, but if you ever need help, you can reach out to me, okay?”

Nic didn’t trust him.

But he wanted to.

So when the colonel scrawled his name and cell phone number on a napkin and held it out, Nic was tempted to take it.

There was a long pause before Rhodey sighed and lowered his arm.

“Okay, man.  You want to be a tough guy, all on your own, you can.  But you’re what?  Eight years old?  Nine?  Eventually you might need a helping hand.  But you have to be willing to take it when it’s offered.”

He left the napkin on the table between them, and neither spoke again until the food arrived.

Nic wolfed his meal down with a single-minded intensity that he only ever gave to important things like his suits and inventions and eating-- when he finally did take a break to eat.

When he was done, he sat quietly, fidgeting and tapping the seat of the booth, while Rhodey finished.  Rhodey eventually got up to pay, and Nic took his chance, dashing out of the booth and out the door, making the bells tied to the inside handle jingle as it shut.

By the time Rhodey turned around, Nic was halfway down the block.

Rhodey sighed, running a hand over his nearly-shaved head.

When he glanced back at the booth, however, he had to smile at what he saw-- or rather, didn’t see.

The kid had taken the napkin.

\---

Nic didn’t trust the colonel-- Rhodey-- but he kept tabs on him.

It took him seconds to hack Rhodey’s records and find his history as a Marine.  It was impressive, from what he saw, but then he noticed the man was the military liaison for Stane Industries, and Nic grimaced.

If he wanted friends, he was going to have to make his own.  Arc Industries was doing just fine with a “reclusive” CEO who never showed his face, but Nic knew he wasn’t doing quite as well.

It was time to finish the project he’d started while still at Hydra, after he’d made Dummy 1.0.

Nic brought up his files on SNOW, an AI which would far outclass any other in existence, and got to work.

But first, he hesitated, fingers hovering over the keys, while the cursor blinked.

He hit delete four times, erasing the name of his AI’s core files, and retyped it.

_ JARVIS _ , the AI would be called.

Nic had found the name in the files on his parents, which he’d hacked from SHIELD and Hydra both-- and now it was easy to tell the difference in their systems, since he’d built Hydra’s, after all, and they’d passed some of it onto the less-evil half of their organization-- and to his surprise, the name had felt…  _ safe _ .

It was a feeling he hadn’t even gotten from his parents’ names, so he held onto it.

Naming his new AI butler after his family’s old human butler would be a fitting tribute, he decided.

Nic hit enter, saving the new name, and buried himself in the code.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I’m not the first kid!Tony fic to have Rhodey feed him in a diner, but hey, it’s a nice little scene. It’s not purposefully based off anything in particular.
> 
> Things are going to pick up in the next chapter! ^^ I can't wait. I have to keep reminding myself of what chapter is going up so I don't add the wrong tags. XD
> 
> By the way, I’m still calling Nic by his fake name and not Tony because he still thinks of himself as Nic, not Tony. He used logic to decide which name to give Rhodey, I wonder if any of you can guess his reasoning?


	6. Warning Shot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am doing my level best to write chapter nine right now, because if I can get that done and run chapter seven through my beta, I'll post seven before next weekend! ^^

“ _Sir, I must insist--_ ”

“I don’t remember programming no sense of fun into you, J,” Nic replied, rotating his arms so the suit went into a barrel roll, which was exhilarating, a little nauseating, and served the intended purpose.

The missile on his tail blew past him, and Nic detonated it with a single repulsor blast.

“ _Sir, with respect, either my definition of ‘fun’ is flawed, or yours is._ ”  The AI replied over the comm built into the suit’s helmet.  The dry British voice made Nic grin.

“Probably mine,” he said, unrepentant, and angled the suit to dive towards the ground.  “But it’s my fault Hydra has these weapons in the first place.  If they fire a few of them at me while I destroy the rest, that’s all part of the fun.”

Even if the rest of the world didn’t exactly agree.

\---

Nic watched the news with a scowl, sitting alone in the living room of the penthouse.

It was the first time he’d ventured out of the workshop for anything other than food in more than a week.  He’d even taken his showers and short naps in tiny rooms built into one side of the workshop for the purpose of not needing to leave during engineering binges, but also helped him conserve his energy, which was starting to weaken due to the palladium poisoning.

He quickly discovered, however, that it had been a mistake to turn on the television while he ate the pizza JARVIS had ordered for him.

It had started pleasantly enough, and Nic had relished the news that Arc Industries was rapidly becoming the leading tech company in the world.  He’d long since surpassed the success of Stane Industries-- even at its peak, while it was still Stark Industries and Howard Stark was running it-- and Hammer Industries.

That idiot-- Justin Hammer-- had even attempted to branch from weapons into smartphones and laptops and the other tech which Arc Industries and Stane Industries both had a hand in, but the attempt had been pitiful.  Stane had put up a miniscule fight, sensing the revenue his company was about to lose, but their focus was too heavily on weaponry-- and Iron Man was dealing with that.

He’d thought of going into weapons and taking out the two companies on their own turf, but decided against it.

There was already enough blood on his hands, and besides, JARVIS was against it.

When the AI you’d built was against an idea, Nic figured, there might be some merit to it, since it may well have come from the recesses of your own brain in the first place.

After the financial report and sports and general world news that Nic only half-listened to, however, his attention was caught again when one of the anchors mentioned Iron Man.

He’d half expected the report to be another rumor about Iron Man’s secret identity.  There were a lot of rumors flying around, including a few rather popular ones speculating that he was secretly a woman, and that’s why the suit was a little shorter than the average male adult.

The report, however, was not about his identity.

Instead, they were playing footage which the military had released, of Nic in the Iron Man suit flying over a warehouse full of Stane and Hammer Industries’ weapons, which the military claimed belonged to the army, but Nic knew were SHIELD’s, and therefore Hydra’s.

The explosion had injured several “soldiers,” the news reported, but there were only two casualties.

Nic suspected he should feel worse about that than he did.  Part of that, he figured he could blame on being raised by spies, but mostly it was the knowledge that only Hydra agents were posted at that particular warehouse-- he’d checked first.  If they had actually been unaffiliated, he wasn’t quite so callous as to not care at all.

What got to Nic, however, was the spin the reporters and the army (through the influence of SHIELD-- and it was SHIELD, not Hydra) had put on the story.

When Iron Man had only been destroying Ten Rings and their weapons, and other terrorist groups, the media painted the mysterious armored man a hero, or at worst, a vigilante.  There were some in the government who wanted him under their thumb, but their voices were not the majority.

Now, however, the anchors were calling him a vigilante at best.  At worst, they were calling him a supervillain.

Nic scoffed, his fingers tapping on the arc reactor in irritation, and wondered precisely when his life had turned into a comic book.

\---

“ _Sir, there is a man on the roof to the west, he is about to--_ ”

JARVIS’s slightly hurried warning was cut off by the metallic _thunk_ of something hitting the suit.

Nic turned, trying to see what had, according to his sensors, managed to embed itself in the cracks between some of the panels on his left upper side.

He barely managed to catch a glimpse of the arrow before a jolt made him spasm, and the suit flickered and went dark.

“Uh.  JARVIS?”  Nic asked, starting to panic as the suit immediately began to plummet.

He glanced down, as best he could inside the suit, and was at least gratified to see a glimpse of the blue glow of the arc reactor in his chest.

The second one, which powered the suit, was flickering badly, more off than on.

Nic hoped whatever had taken out the suit wouldn’t affect the reactor more than it already had before he could prevent it from taking out the surrounding dozen or so city blocks.

The more immediate concern, however, was that he’d been several hundred feet up and was now free-falling in a dark suit, without no way to break his fall.

Nic debated screaming, but decided it wasn’t going to help, tumbling uncontrollably through the air, the rush of wind almost deafening around the suit.

Then suddenly there was the sound of something metal scratching against the suit, a sharp _jerk_ , and his descent was slowing a little, before jolting to a rather unpleasant stop.  Nic wondered if it was over, when there was one more jerk, and the suit shifted several feet sideways, dropping onto what felt like concrete.

Nic groaned, flailing slightly, struggling to move the monstrously heavy suit.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice said, and Nic strained to turn the helmet towards the sound.  He could barely make out sky and… what looked like the edge of a roof.

He was on top of a skyscraper?

Straining a little more, he spotted the man speaking, blonde hair messy in the wind, and the SHIELD logo on the man’s dark uniform, and Nic couldn’t suppress a groan.

“That was a rather nasty fall you just took.  You probably have a concussion,” the SHIELD agent continued, his voice casual.

Nic grimaced, but he couldn’t respond while the power was off-- for one thing, his voice was unlikely to carry through the metal, and if it did, they’d know he was younger than everyone assumed.  And male.

“Don’t worry about your suit.  It’s only temporary… this time.”  The agent continued, and Nic mentally made a note to get revenge for the laughter he heard in the man’s tone.

True to the man’s word, however, power began flickering back slowly.  Nic tried to lift an arm and found that he could, but the motion was slow, and when he checked, his weapons and flight systems were still unresponsive, taking longer to boot up again.

Once JARVIS was back in his ear and the voice modulator was active, Nic pushed the suit up so he was sitting mostly up.

“How nice of SHIELD to give me a warning shot,” he said, and could hear the mechanical voice come out with a dry sarcasm similar to his AI’s.  “Which side are you?”

The agent frowned, and in the corner of his eye, Nic saw JARVIS bring up the man’s file.

_Agent Barton_.  Archer, ex-carney, codenamed Hawkeye because he never missed a shot.  The file named him as being on the shortlist for the Avengers Initiative, whatever that was, and had a note attached to see the file of one Natasha Romanov.

Nic dismissed the information for review later, refocusing on the now-confused archer.

“Side of what?”

“ _There is no evidence to suggest that Agent Barton is a member of Hydra_ ,” JARVIS reported quietly in Nic’s ear.

Nic sighed.

“Well, small victories.  I’ll take it.  Okay, you’ve taken your warning shot.  What are your orders now?”  He asked.

Agent Barton tilted his head.

“That depends on whether or not you’re going to stop blowing up our warehouses.  Are you?”

Nic stared at the man as he slowly maneuvered the suit until he could stand up.

“Would you believe me if I said yes?”

Agent Barton shrugged, raising one eyebrow.

“Are you saying yes?  It’d make all of our lives easier if you did.  And the director could stop screaming in my ear.”

Nic tilted the head of the suit.

The agent was certainly nothing like the Hydra agents he’d met.  Nic almost thought they could be friends, if the man weren’t working for an agency which was half made up of nazis.

“No, I’m afraid not,” he said.  “So where does that leave us?”

JARVIS had already scanned their surroundings and silently displayed the results on his screen.  Nic smirked.

The agent looked put-upon, but not surprised.

“My orders are to take you in or kill you,” he replied.  “I’d rather not kill you.  I wanted to give you a choice to join us, and I’m already going to get chewed out for this.  The next guy they send isn’t going to be half as nice as me.  And possibly not a guy.”

Oddly, Nic believed him.

He backed away a step or two, arms raised as if in surrender.  Agent Barton didn’t look comforted, raising his bow with another arrow ready to fire.

Nic knew he’d probably seen the footage of Iron Man’s flights and SHIELD had realized the repulsors in his palms could also be used as weapons.

“Well, you know what they say.  Sometimes we all have to do things we don’t want to,” Nic replied, taking one more step backwards-- and he dropped off the roof.

A few seconds later, he’d put another building between the archer and himself, and began planning a long and winding flight back to his workshop, already planning how to make a new suit which could withstand even an EMP.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t find a great way to work it into this chapter, so just to clear one thing up-- Nic/Tony was a tiny kid, but he’s around average height by this point, so he’s around five feet tall. The suit is a bit taller and thicker than he is, however, so he can fake a few extra inches. It still puts him below his canon height, or that of the average adult male, and that’s why the media and the general public latched onto the theory that Iron Man is actually a woman.


	7. The Man in the Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place roughly another year after the last one, when Nic is twelve, approximately two years after escaping Hydra and one year after Yinsen’s death.
> 
> You have no idea how long I've been waiting to post this chapter. XD It contains one of the scenes that gave birth to this fic as a whole. (The others, in case you're wondering, are a fight scene with a fancy little pit of parkour, a fall, a broken window, and a car. Yes, I'm purposefully being extremely vague. ;P)

Nic leaned back in his chair, kicking both feet up on his workshop desk and crossing his arms behind his head.

He was scrutinizing the glowing lines of code scrolling by quickly on the holoscreen before him.

The code was brilliant, elegant-- and vicious.

Of course it was.

He wrote it.

“How are we doing, J?”  Nic asked.

“ _ I have completed the infiltration of Stane Industries, SHIELD, and Hydra’s servers, Sir.  Director Fury does not seem to be aware of Secretary Pierce’s involvement with Hydra.”  The voice from the ceiling responded calmly.  “Neither is he aware of Stane’s dealings with Hydra, in addition to his SHIELD contracts. _ ”

Nic fiddled with a small wrench between his fingers for a while, thinking, before tossing it onto his desk and waving his hands to clear the holoscreens.

“Then we don’t need to destroy Fury for now,” the kid replied, frowning.  “But keep monitoring him, JARVIS.  I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t realize Hydra is right under their nose.”

“ _ Of course, Sir. _ ”  JARVIS replied.  “ _ And what shall I do about our friend in Hydra’s care? _ ”

Nic thought quietly for a moment, pacing with barely-restrained energy.  His fingers tapped out a beat on his chest, making a metallic clicking noise.

“We can’t get him out without a distraction.  Iron Man isn’t enough of one unless I were to admit who I am-- since apparently they’re all too stupid to realize it’s me in the suit.  There’s nothing to do but wait, for now.  And hope they don’t wake him up and send him after Iron Man.”

\---

Not long after, Nic was working on the latest upgrade to the ArcPhone for Pepper when the perfect opportunity presented itself.

It did so with a chorus of alarms, causing Nic to jerk sharply, burning himself with his soldering pen, and staring up at his holoscreens.

“What the hell, J?”  He demanded.

“ _ Apologies, Sir, _ ” the AI replied, as calm as ever, while he muted the noise.  “ _ The alarms were not part of my protocols.  They are originating from servers which bear the signature of Stark Industries. _ ”

Nic frowned.

“You mean Stane Industries.”

“ _ No, Sir.  Stark Industries.  Specifically obsolete servers which were marked as retired and shut down, but are still active in the basement of Stark Mansion.  They appear to predate the conversion from Stark Industries to Stane Industries, and therefore have not alerted anyone at the company to their altered status. _ ”

Nic put down the soldering pen, motioning for JARVIS to display the code which had triggered the alarms.

By the time he reached the end, he was frowning.

“Who the hell is Captain America, and why was Howard Stark looking for him in the middle of the ocean?”

\---

After an hour’s worth of JARVIS giving Nic a crash course in Nationalist sensationalism during wartime and American military history, Nic sat with his head propped on one hand, staring at the holoscreens while he cradled his  _ something _ -th cup of coffee for the day (or night, judging by the timestamp in one corner of the screen).

They’d glossed over the files on Captain Roger’s team, the Howling Commandos, focusing more on his origins, his fight against Hydra, and his relationship with Howard Stark.

(“I’m not interested in the boy scout my…  _ Howard Stark _ was obsessed with,” Nic had scoffed.  “Maybe if he’d been paying more attention to other things, he would have noticed Hydra survived and decided to kill him.  Just give me the cliffnotes version, J.”)

“ _ What do you want me to do? _ ”  JARVIS prompted him again after a long pause.

Nic ran the possibilities in his head.

He could fly to the arctic, as Iron Man, and find the crashed  _ Valkyrie _ and retrieve the human fossil-- who, if Howard’s satellite’s findings could be believed, may well still be alive-- but then what?

If half of what was said about the man was true, he wasn’t likely to get along with an underage hacker who illegally blew up weapons and who could probably stand to care a little more about other people.  Plus, whether knowingly or not, Nic had been raised by the organization Steve Rogers had tried to destroy for the latter part of his life.

It didn’t bode well for a future of working together, and the probability of the situation working out was slim.

Then there was the option of turning the information over to Hydra.

(What?  He didn’t say it was a  _ nice _ option.)

JARVIS certainly wouldn’t approve, and Nic doubted Yinsen would have either, but it would certainly get Hydra’s attention off the vigilante destroying their weapons caches, even if they hadn’t quite realized that  _ Hydra _ , and not just SHIELD, was his target.

The probability for short-term benefits was high, but long-term they were the opposite, and Nic dismissed the option out of hand.

He  _ was _ trying to be a better person, after all.

That left either just leaving the captain in the ice, which benefited no one, or the fourth option, which still had only moderate probabilities for an improvement in Nic’s situation.

He could pass the information to Fury’s people in SHIELD.  He still didn’t trust the man, and probably never would, but he was certainly better than Hydra.  They could retrieve Captain America from the ice, and the considerable number of non-Hydra agents in SHIELD would prevent Pierce from immediately trying to kill him.

Even better, it would be the perfect distraction for Nic to get his longest, and only still-living friend back, if one didn’t count JARVIS as “alive.”  (Pepper and Rhodey were allies, he figured, but he wouldn’t call them  _ friends _ , exactly.)

“ _ Sir? _ ”

“Send the alerts to Fury,” Nic replied, finally.

“ _ Are you certain, Sir? _ ”

Nic stood, brushing his palms against his jeans (accidentally smearing even more grease and oil on them).

“Do it, J, and make it seem like they don’t have long to save him.  Then get the suit ready.  Hydra is going to try to beat them to it, and this is going to be the best chance we’re going to get.”

“ _ Yes, Sir, _ ” JARVIS replied, quickly complying with his orders.

\---

Nic was already in the skies above a remote Hydra base, hovering out of sight, when JARVIS alerted him to Hydra’s utter panic at Steve Roger’s discovery.

Sure enough, agents were scrambled from bases all over the world, either to actually try to uncover him or just to clear out bases he would have known about.  Several locations which he had attacked in the war had been converted to “SHIELD” stations later, but were in reality Hydra’s, and still had damning evidence hidden away.

The sudden activity also served the purpose of constipating Hydra’s communication networks.

JARVIS piggybacked on the chaos, “overloading” the systems for the base Nic was over, and when he reported his success, Nic gave the order to cut the cameras.

It took less than ten minutes to sneak in, avoid the skeleton crew left in the base, and find the storage room-- the  _ storage room _ , Nic was furious, how dare they keep his  _ friend _ in a  _ storage room _ \-- which held the giant coffin-like tank he was looking for.

One of the hated chairs sat only ten feet away, but Nic did no more than send it a scathing glance, prioritizing retrieval.

It took mere moments for Nic to punch in the defrosting command-- it was not the first time he’d seen the defrosting procedure.  He’d even been allowed to initiate the process once, with Pierce looking over him like a proud, murderous uncle.

The tank opened with a frosty hiss.

The Winter Soldier woke slowly, and when his eyes blinked halfway open he made an abortive movement forward, promptly collapsing into Nic’s waiting arms.

Carefully, he hoisted the once-again-unconscious man up, holding him against the suit with one arm, extremely thankful for the superhuman strength of the suit.

Yasha was dead weight, and Nic knew he would remain as such for some time.

He didn't bother looking for the Soldier's tactical gear.  He'd created it, after all, and he had rebuilt it much better since then.  He did, however, take the extra ten minutes to locate the Soldier's knives.  Yasha had told him before about their perfect balance and how well they had defended him, after one particularly longer stretch without being wiped (and with hanging around Nic a lot) had made him a bit fluent with words.

Nic carefully stored the knives away in various compartments in his suit, strapped the remaining knives carefully to his friend, and hefted him up so he could carry Yasha out while still being able to fly, with the repulsors in his boots and one free palm.

“Plant an order to activate the Winter Soldier, J,” Nic said, huffing slightly as he turned towards the exit.  “Make it seem like he vanished while on a mission.  If nothing else, it will buy us time.”

“ _ Consider it done, Sir, _ ” JARVIS replied, and continued to guide Iron Man out of the base like an extremely heavy, extremely shiny ghost.  “ _ And Sir, once you’re back, I think there’s something in Captain Rogers’ file that you need to see about the Winter Soldier. _ ”

\---

“J, how the hell did you not realize this before?”  Nic asked, fingers running through his hair.

Yasha was still unconscious in a heap on the cot just off his workshop.

Or should he say,  _ Bucky Barnes _ was, since his friend was apparently much older than he thought and the  _ best friend of Captain America _ .

“ _ I apologize, Sir.  None of the files on the Winter Soldier contained images of his entire face.  It seems that the only files which do so are held inside SHIELD headquarters, hidden in storage rooms that only Hydra agents have access to. _ ”

Nic sighed.

“ _ Sir! _ ”  JARVIS’s voice called out, a sharp warning.

Then a metal hand closed around his throat and lifted him against the wall.

He met Yasha’s eyes, expecting to see the vague, glazed-over look that he’s seen before after the man had been defrosted, but instead they were bright and sharp with pain and confusion.

“...Nic?”  Yasha asked, and Nic nodded as much as he could, hands scrambling against the metal arm.

Yasha seemed to realize what he was doing, finally, and released his grip.

Nic slid to the floor, coughing as air flooded back into his lungs.

“I-- where is this?”  The Soldier demanded, in lieu of an apology, not that Nic expected one.  Neither of them were particularly used to apologizing for anything, they just moved past whatever it was they had done.

The stricken look in the man’s eyes spoke to both fear and regret, however, and that was enough.

“We’re at my workshop, in New York, in the basement of a tower I own.  You’re safe here-- as safe as people like us can get, anyway.”  Nic explained, between deep breaths.

Yasha began casing the room.  He didn’t seem to know how to react to the bots, who started following him around like very clumsy, mechanical ducklings, and chose to ignore them in favor of examining everything.  When he found the collection of knives Nic had brought back with him, he immediately began strapping them to his person.

Nic watched him without fear.

“Where are the handlers?”  Yasha asked, and a feral grin made its way onto Nic’s face.

“There are no handlers here.  We’re not at SHIELD anymore, or Hydra-- whatever name they told you.  We’re free.”

Yasha turned to stare at him, and he blinked a few times before resuming his walk around the room.

“They will come for us.  They always retrieve their assets.  And then there is more pain.”

Nic’s grin dropped into a scowl.

He wondered exactly how many times Yasha had tried to escape, and how differently they must have been treated for him to try.

“They won’t get you now.  I’ve never lied to you before, right?”

Yasha shook his head, hesitantly.

“No, but the asset must always have a handler,” he protested.

Nic frowned, ready to argue, but Yasha cut him off.

“You can be the handler.  Even… before.  You were always different.  Always…”  Yasha’ voice drifted off, unable to think of a word.

Nic had the awful feeling that the word was “kind.”  He had to swallow hard before continuing.

“Right.  Anyway... Since you’re feeling particularly talkative today, I’d guess you’re already doing better without that damn chair.”  He ignored the wince his words caused.  “Plus, there’s a lot I need to catch you up on.  I can defend myself now-- both of us.  It’s been a couple years, a lot happened.”

\---

“Hey, hey!”  Nic protested, not flinching, but stepping back slightly as Yasha brought his metal hand forward to hover over the arc reactor.  “It’s okay, I survived!”

“ _ Barely _ ,” Yasha growled, his usual dead stare currently piercing through the miniature genius.  “Are any of your captives still alive?”

Nic swallowed once, shaking his head.

Yasha looked fiercely disappointed.  Nic didn’t doubt that Yasha’s version of killing his captors would have taken much longer, and been much more painful.

“What is that?”  Yasha asked, and Nic blinked in surprise, before looking down at his own chest, where he was staring.

“I told you, it’s called an arc rea--”

Yasha shook his head slightly.

“Not that.  Those marks,” he clarified, and Nic sucked in air between his teeth.

“Oh, uh, yeah… Did I forget to mention I’m dying?”

Yasha’s dead gaze twisted into homicidal rage.

“You’re  _ what?! _ ”

_ Whoops _ , Nic thought, and despite shooting a pleading glance at one of JARVIS’s sensors in the ceiling of the workshop, he knew he wasn’t going to get any help from that corner.

“Uh, it’s the palladium in the reactor, it’s saving me, but it’s also poisoning me…”

\---

After Nic finished explaining his actions over the past two years to Yasha, he was subjected to several hours of shouting-- well, Yasha’s version of shouting, which in fact consisted of very loud glaring and gruff, blade-sharp reports of Nic’s shortcomings and failures (particularly tactical ones), and comments about how being a vigilante and trying to make amends wouldn’t mean a thing if he died before it could happen.

Or words to that effect, anyway.

The man wasn’t particularly given to monologues.

When he was finally done, Yasha seemed spent, but Nic sighed.  There was one last thing to cover.

“Listen… I found out who you were, before Hydra got their hands on you.  Who both of us were.”

Yasha frowned.

“I was always the asset… wasn’t I?”

Nic swallowed thickly.

“No.  Uh, does the name Steve Rogers ring a bell?  No?  Well, that makes this a little harder to explain…”

\---

Afterwards, Yasha sat in a corner of Nic’s workshop, sharpening his knives while Nic made repairs to the suit.  He’d refused to be called “Bucky,” growling that he didn’t remember anything about the man or his captain, and that wasn’t who he was anymore.

Nic let it go, for the moment.

It was enough that he had his friend back, the only person alive that he fully trusted, and who trusted him back-- Yasha didn’t even react when Nic told JARVIS to start playing his music at a volume not generally considered to be healthy for one’s eardrums.

The pair kept to themselves for long enough that Nic became lost in his work again, when he suddenly noticed the absence of sound, and looked up.

“What did you say?”  He asked Yasha, who was abruptly standing five feet away, watching him work.

Yasha’s near-permanent lack of expression twitched into a flicker of resigned annoyance, there for half a moment and then gone.

“No more deaths,” the ex-Winter Soldier repeated, and Nic blinked.

“I want to help you stop Hydra, Ten Rings, and Stane,” he clarified.  “But I’m done killing on orders.  No more civilians.”

Nic frowned.

“Bystanders, you mean?”  He asked, and was given a nod in return.  “Sure, I mean, it’s not like I tried to hurt any of them anyway.  But surely you don’t mind killing Hydra agents, right?”

Yasha frowned, but nodded again, more slowly this time.

“If we have to.  But if we can arrest them, I am tired of death.”

Nic sighed, running the math in his head.

It certainly wouldn’t be easier, and most of the agents would probably not stay in jail and just return to fight them again.

But it might show the public that Iron Man-- and the Winter Soldier-- weren’t just vigilantes or assassins.

“Okay,” Nic agreed.  “No more killing, unless we absolutely have to.”

Yasha nodded, and silence threatened to fall once more.  Hesitantly, Nic opened his mouth to speak again, but closed it quickly.

Yasha looked at him.  Nic figured it was out of his character to not just say everything he was thinking.

He sighed, deeper this time.

“If we’re reinventing ourselves, and all that, then I guess it’s a good time to tell you to call me ‘Tony.’  After all, I’m out there now, and it wouldn’t be good for someone to connect Nic-the-kid with Nic-the-Mechanic, hacker extraordinaire, now would it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was a lot of revelations for one chapter! XD
> 
> Yay, now I can finally call Tony by his real name, unless I'm going a flashback section! ^^
> 
> My plan is to release an extra chapter mid-week, so long as my beta can glance at it, since I've got an extra chapter in my buffer right now. You might also get a mean little short (not in this fic-verse), if I manage to get it down while working around some coding challenges I have to do this week. (If the extra chapter doesn't go up, assume it will be as soon as it gets beta'd.)


	8. ‘Villain’ is a Relative Term

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is actually unbeta'd because my beta is really busy right now, so I'll go back and edit this once they have time. Nothing major will change, so don't worry about it if you're reading this before it gets edited.
> 
> I'm just having the shittiest week from hell, so I wanted to post another chapter. Thanks for all the comments so far, you guys keep making me smile, even when I'm having shit days. (And to those of you who don't, but keep leaving kudos, I get the daily emails with the lists of them, and they really mean a lot!)

“Okay,” Tony said, raising his armored arms and leaning into a boxing position, waiting for a punch.  “Hit me with your best shot.”

Yasha gave him a flat look.

“ _ Sir _ ,” JARVIS interjected, “ _ I really don’t think _ \--”

“Alright, alright, not your  _ best _ shot, it’s just a phrase.  But it’s a lot better than--”

Yasha made a motion, and suddenly Tony was flat on his back, one arm still in the grip of Yasha’s metal hand, and several new dents and scratches on the suit.

0:1 to Yasha.

“ _ Hrrrrngh _ ,” Tony groaned.  “Fine, okay, ow, can we skip the part where you kick my ass and get to the part where you make me a little harder to kill?”

He counted it as a point in his favor when the corner of Yasha’s mouth twitched upwards.

1:1.

He didn’t keep the advantage long, and by the end of the hour-long sparring session, Tony was sporting several new bruises and the suit looked like someone dragged it behind a car.  Yasha was smugly polishing his arm and knives (again) in the corner of the workshop which Tony had already began to think of as Yasha’s corner, while Tony began planning how to add more padding inside the suit.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to build you a suit?”  Tony asked again.

The constant, somewhat comforting sound of Yasha polishing behind him stopped.

“It would slow me down,” he replied after a moment.  “Besides, we decided the Winter Soldier and Iron Man should not be linked.

Tony sighed.

“I still don’t think that’s necessary.  Apparently the novelty has worn off, and Iron Man is being called a villain already.  But okay, we’ll try it your way.  If Hydra shows up and tries to cart you off again, though, I’m saving your ass, and you can yell at me afterwards.  Deal?”

“... Deal,” Yasha replied.

Dummy rolled over while Tony was massaging his side, a single ice cube in his claw.  Tony blinked at the bot, who made an encouraging whirring noise, and then took the cube, pressing it against one of his bruises.

“Thanks, Dummy,” he said, wondering how many ice cubes were on the floor of the kitchen upstairs.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yasha’s mouth twitch into what could be classified as a smile, if one considered how many decades it had been since he’d last tried.

One point to Dummy.

\---

Yasha’s first “mission” as a free man was to break into one of the major SHIELD-but-really-Hydra bases in New York and destroy the memory-wiping chair there.

Tony promised not to help, but that didn’t stop him from watching-- at a safe distance, of course.

JARVIS fed him progress reports as Yasha set off the fire alarm, evacuating the building, before  _ somehow _ sneaking through the building without showing up on camera even for an instant.

It only took Yasha minutes to destroy the chair, and then he was out before Tony could start to panic.

Things didn’t start to go wrong until Yasha was halfway to Tony’s lookout spot.

“ _ Sir, there are SHIELD agents five minutes away, _ ” JARVIS reported, and Tony could have sworn he heard a curse over the comms.

“From which direction?”  Yasha asked.

“Uh, looks like all of them,” Tony replied, powering up the repulsors in his palms.

Then he stopped dead in mid-air.

“Yep, that’d be all of them.  Including  _ up _ .”

He dropped back to roof he’d been watching from, keeping his flashy suit out of sight.  He was confident they couldn’t pick up any energy signatures from his suit, after fortifying it since his little run-in with Agent Barton.

“Stay away,” Yasha growled, and Tony could pick up the sounds of him running.  “I can handle SHIELD.”

“Okay, but JARVIS is going to let me know if you get trapped.”

Yasha focused on running and didn’t respond.

Tony had JARVIS hack the agents’ comms while he waited, and listened in on their hunt.

They weren’t having much luck, but to his dismay, they had apparently spotted the flash of the metal arm and knew they were chasing the mythical Winter Soldier.

Tony cursed, but when he relayed the information, Yasha wasn’t bothered.

“They were always going to find out,” he said, and went silent again.

Tony had another response ready when he suddenly felt the constant pain from the reactor in his chest spike.

He staggered to one knee, catching himself with one arm in a poor imitation of the three-point landing he’d begun to favor when he went out as Iron Man.

JARVIS was talking to him, but Tony couldn’t focus on what he was saying, in too much pain.

The next thing he knew, the SHIELD ships were still in the sky but further away, and Yasha was by his side, having pulled off the goggles and mask he’d decided to keep wearing on missions.

He thought he could see smoke rising from somewhere in the distance.

“Where’s the fire?”  Tony tried to joke, but it fell flat as the pain made him clamp his teeth shut.

Yasha just glowered as JARVIS released the latches on the suit and he began removing the chest plate.

“These cores are not working,” Yasha barked, pulling out one of the spares he’d insisted on keeping with him, replacing the burned-out one in the reactor and plugging it back in.

When Tony could breathe again, he laughed.  There wasn’t much real humor in the sound.

“Yeah, well, you find me something that  _ does _ work, and I’ll use that instead,” he replied, and popped up the helmet long enough to spit out blood.

He wondered when he’d bitten the inside of his cheek.

Yasha looked unexpectedly alarmed.

“We can’t leave a blood trail behind,” he said.

Tony huffed out a single laugh.

“Won’t,” he said, still catching his breath.  “There’s… a toxin, in my blood.  Prototype, I designed it.  Degrades my DNA… once it leaves my body.”

Yasha raised one of his eyebrows.

“Useful,” he praised.  “Can you do that to me too?”

Tony nodded.

“As soon as we get back,” he promised, then staggered to his feet.  “Okay, let’s go home already.”

\---

“Hey JARVIS?  What happened with good ol’ Captain Spangles?”

Tony was lying on the couch in their living room-- well, the one in the penthouse.  Technically having bought the entire tower months ago made the entire apartment building theirs.

He was camped out with a tablet, tapping away at the latest attempt to fulfil his promise to Yasha and fix his arc reactor.  Yasha was somewhere behind him, in the kitchen.  He could hear the comforting knife sounds he’d begun to associate with his friend.

“ _ If you mean Captain Rogers, Sir, _ ” JARVIS replied with exaggerated patience, “ _ Director Fury has added him to what his private files are calling the Avengers Initiative.  Secretary Pierce is livid over SHIELD recovering him first, but does not know who was responsible.  He does not yet suspect you, Sir. _ ”

The genius snorted.

“Of course not.  Pierce would never suspect Hydra’s golden boy.  And then I died.  No one’s caught on that I escaped the Ten-- that I escaped the caves?”  Tony muttered, his voice drifting off at the end of his question.

“ _ No, Sir, _ ”  JARVIS replied.  “ _ No new evidence has been uncovered.  Officially, no one survived your escape.  Hydra is not even looking into it anymore, as they are too busy trying to hunt down the Winter Soldier. _ ”

“Well, that’s one good thing about your little escapade,” Tony called over his shoulder.  “Although I’d rather it not have been necessary.”

“Don’t make it necessary, then,” Yasha replied, inflicting one of his raised-eyebrow glares on Tony again, as he walked into the living room.

He deposited one of the two plates he was carrying on Tony’s lap, taking the tablet to make room.  The other went in his own lap.

Tony glanced down, for a moment still expecting to see his tablet in the space the plate now occupied.

“An omelette?”  He asked, blinking up at Yasha.

Yasha glared again.

“I don’t remember how to cook,” he muttered, “and any memories I had of it are decades old.  I’d like to see you try.”

Tony shook his head frantically.

“Uh, no, you wouldn’t.  I think last time I burned soup, Yinsen banned me from the kitchen.”

Yasha paused.

“You-- Nevermind, I don’t want to know.  I’m going to teach you to cook an omelette.”

Tony snorted.

“I didn’t know you liked impossible missions.  Okay, good luck with that.”

They descended into silence as both man and boy finished eating.

Tony was already lost in thought, still trying to solve the palladium problem in his head.

“-- Howard?”

“Huh?”  Tony asked, only catching the end of Yasha’s question.

“I said, I wonder if Howard Stark could have helped,” Yasha repeated, looking up from where he’d been staring at Tony’s tablet.

Tony blinked.

“Well, he’s dead now, so I doubt we’re going to find out.”

Yasha’s glare increased in intensity again.

“There are files, right?  Why not give those a shot?  He was as smart as you, wasn’t he?”

Tony crossed his arms, grimacing.

“There’s no way of knowing who would have been smarter.  But I bet I’d win.”

Yasha sighed shortly.

“Would it hurt to try?”  He asked.

Tony muttered something that had a grudging “no” in there somewhere.

“Good,” Yasha replied.  “Where is his old stuff?”

Which was how Iron Man and the Winter Soldier began planning how to break into the storage rooms of SHIELD headquarters in Washington, D.C..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This weekend my brother is visiting, and I haven't seen him in a while, and then later next week one of my best friends is visiting for a day, and I won't see them again for at least a year, so the next update might get thrown back a couple days since I've only got a one-chapter buffer right now. You should get one in the middle of next week if I can't get one out this weekend, but we'll see. It won't be a long delay, I promise.


	9. From Father to Son

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the wait! I’m eliminating my chapter buffer and posting this without running it through my beta, but I didn’t want to keep you all waiting longer than you have already, despite my not being able to finish 10 quite yet (although I know what all of it will be-- and I just added more mean things later! XD).
> 
> The reason for the delay is that I’ve had pretty bad nausea and vertigo for the last two weeks now, and no one knows why. I’ll do my best to post every weekend, however, or at worst every-other one!

“In-and-out, remember,” Yasha repeated for the umpteenth time.  “If you go off-target, you could be spotted by a Hydra agent.”

Tony rolled his eyes.

“I’ll be fine,” he replied, also for the umpteenth time.  “I’ve memorized the building’s blueprints, and JARVIS will warn me if he spots any known Hydra agents on the cameras.”

“I will be outside, where we discussed.  If you get captured,” Yasha warned him, “I’m coming in after you.  Or destroying a national monument.  Whichever will catch more attention.”

Tony grimaced.

“I’d rather you didn’t.  That’s not exactly subtle, and sort of goes against the whole ‘in hiding’ thing.”

“Then don’t get caught,” Yasha replied, and stalked off to his lookout point, in a van parked not far from SHIELD headquarters.

Tony would never admit to being just a bit nervous as he began walking towards the crowd of new SHIELD operatives, mostly analysts and scientists, as they passed by on their walk into work.

He blended in well, he thought, and surprisingly he wasn’t even the youngest-looking person in the group.  No one gave one more young genius in their midsts a second glance, and his hacked security badge gained him entry without any issues.

“ _ Sir, there is a Hydra agent fifty feet to your left who in on the list of those who would recognize you, _ ” JARVIS reported from the tiny comm device in his ear, and Tony tensed.  “ _ If you would step behind the group of people to your right, he will pass you in twenty seconds _ .”

Tony did as he was told, and continued to follow JARVIS’s directions, making his way slowly up several floors, until JARVIS unlocked one last door for him, and Tony was in a large storage room.

It was innocuously placed nearly in the center of the building, and Tony had needed to hide behind a potted plant in a cubicle for ten minutes to avoid the agents, both SHIELD and Hydra, warming this floor, but no one was actually guarding the room.  With nearly all their files digitized, after all, no one particularly thought SHIELD’s files on the Winter Soldier, among many other things, needed guarding.

Yasha and Tony knew that there were other files, in more hidden and secure locations, but those were scheduled to be raided and bombed by Iron Man later in the week.

Unless Iron Man  _ really _ wanted SHIELD and just about everyone else after him, however, Iron Man couldn’t steal files from the heart of SHIELD headquarters.  Neither could the Winter Soldier, or the quite recognizable Bucky Barnes.

Which meant it was Tony, without his mask, who got to break in.  Stealing the files on the Winter Soldier and on Howard Stark in one trip just killed two birds with one stone.

It didn’t take long for Tony to find the files he needed, although he stole a few others to hide the target of the theft.  All the files went in a SHIELD-issue messenger bag, which he’d swiped off another newbie’s desk, and he was out, JARVIS giving him directions again.

“Okay, now to get Dear Old Dad’s files,” he muttered, then ducked behind a copy machine at JARVIS’s command.

\---

Sneaking down into the engineering labs’ storage rooms took a good deal more time, since the halls were smaller and he had to move carefully, since there would be nowhere to go if he ran into a Hydra scientist.

Eventually, however, he did make it to the labs, and he stalked through them with as much confidence as he could muster while in enemy territory, making a beeline for the storage closet on the other side of the room.

No one bothered him, and he managed to take scans of the non-digitized files on a tiny camera he’d brought for that purpose.

There were a also few ancient video tapes and reels which he packed into his bag, and that was it.  He’d already stolen any files Stane Industries had, as Iron Man (blowing up the warehouse when he was done, to hide the theft), which made these the last effort to find a solution to his palladium problem.  Now he just had to get out of the building.

He was halfway across the lab again when he had to stop.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The young man looked up, looking vaguely terrified.

“ _ Tony? _ ”  Yasha demanded in his ear.  “ _ Status report! _ ”

“If you connect those two wires, you’re going to blow up half the floor!  Look,” Tony half-growled, ignoring both Yasha and the startled other workers, who were all staring at the young kid berating one of their own.

He spent five minutes furiously schooling the now-utterly-terrified engineer and showing him how to complete his project  _ without _ blowing up anything, and when he was out of breath and beet-red, and Yasha was done shouting in his ear, Tony finished stalking across the room with his stolen data, a crowd of stunned people in his wake.

He was halfway down the hall, a few agents and engineers milling around nearby, when a voice stopped him.

“Did you really have to terrify the guy?  He was just a kid.”

Tony froze, recognizing the voice, and Yasha cursed over the comms again.

He spun around slowly, burying his panic behind a cocky grin.

“Well, yeah, he deserved it.  He was going to kill us all,” Tony replied.

The agent smirked right back.  Tony was relieved that he didn’t look ready to arrest him, or kill him, or something else horrible that meant he’d been busted.

“Damn, I take that back, kid got schooled by another kid.”  The agent made a put-upon sound.  “Well, now I owe Nat twenty bucks, I bet I could terrify the newbies before lunch, but you beat me to it.  Nice to meet you, I’m--”

“Agent Barton, codename Hawkeye,” Tony replied, still grinning.  “Yeah, I’ve heard of you.”

Agent Barton rubbed the back of his head.

“Yeah, word seems to be going around.  You’re not going to ask for my autograph or something, right?”

Tony shook his head.

“Nope, not interested.  But I’d love to take a look at your bow sometime.  I bet I could do better.”

The agent blinked, raising his eyebrows.

“You think you can out-shoot me?”  He asked.

Tony shook his head emphatically.

“Oh, no.  I bet I could  _ improve _ your bow.  Or the arrows.  Sleeping gas, maybe?  Or prank ones, like itching powder.  I bet you could terrorize the interns and they’d never see you coming.”

Agent Baron blinked again, then threw his head back and laughed.

“I like you, kid.  What’s your name?”

Tony was spared from having to answer as the speakers in the ceiling began to page Agent Barton to report to a briefing.

“Damn,” the agent cursed, and flashed Tony a smile again.  “I’ll find you later, kid, and maybe you can take a look at one of my arrows.”

“No problem, Agent Birdbrain,” Tony replied, and Agent Barton blinked.

Tony had responded in sign language.

The agent frowned, but as the speakers demanded he report  _ immediately _ , he shook his head slightly and ran off.

Tony sighed.

“Okay, maybe the sign language was a bad idea.  That’s not common knowledge at SHIELD... Thanks, J,” he muttered.

“ _ While I was prepared to call Agent Barton away, that was not me, _ ” JARVIS replied.  “ _ Now, if you would please continue thirty feet to your right, you are nearly outside _ . _  I am sure Yasha would like to lecture you on the wisdom of showing classified knowledge you gained through hacking once you are safe. _ ”

“Right, yeah.  Remind me to read about whatever mission he’s sent on later?  Hopefully it’s not Iron Man, again,” Tony said, not looking forward to seeing Yasha, for once.

“ _ Of course, Sir _ ,” JARVIS replied, “ _ although the mission does not appear to be related to Iron Man or the Winter Soldier.  It seems he is being sent to Budapest with Agent Romanov _ .”

\---

After the yelling was finished (which took the entire ride home, plus the elevator ride down to the workshop, and then another forty minutes), Yasha sat in his corner of the workshop reading his own files while Tony began wading his way through his father’s data.

Tony only stopped in order to replace his reactor core, peeling back the thick layer of fake skin over it in order to do so, as the pain in his chest warned him it was necessary.

He knew if Howard hadn’t found some miraculous solution, he was rapidly running out of time.  He’d set up contingency plans which would keep Yasha as safe as possible long after he died, and he knew the bots and JARVIS would be fine with the ex-assassin.  He wasn’t too worried about how they’d fare.

He was more worried about how Yasha was going to react when he got to the point in his file which mentioned a mission on December 16, 1991, where the Winter Soldier had been sent to kill Howard and Maria Stark.

Tony had known since reading Hydra’s files shortly after escaping, and he’d had a couple years to get over it-- not that it had really affected him other than shock in the first place.  It wasn’t like he could remember his parents, and Yasha had been a friend to him despite having his memories wiped regularly and having to pretend Tony was hurting him in order for Tony to continue doing maintenance on his arm.

In short-- Tony didn’t care.

But he suspected Yasha was going to.

He pushed, the thought aside, however, in favor of trying to satisfy Yasha’s insistence that he survive.

So while his friend read the damning files, Tony found himself watching hours of tapes, twirling a screwdriver in his hand and trying to pinpoint why  _ something _ was bothering him about how Howard kept talking to whoever was filming.  Howard was insisting they record unreasonable amounts of footage of his designs for buildings and parks which he’d modeled to scale on a giant table, when Yasha grabbed him by the neck and spun him around, pushing him backwards until he was pressed against the wall.

Yasha’s grip wasn’t quite tight enough to stop him breathing, but Tony still had to fight down a moment of blind panic before he swallowed thickly and met Yasha’s glare.

“Did you know?”  Yasha hissed, his eyes cold, and Tony froze.

He wasn’t quite sure how much this was his friend, and how much this was the Soldier, at the moment.

“Yes, and I don’t care,” Tony replied anyway, and he could feel the tiny shifts of mechanics in the metal arm around his throat as the Soldier did  _ not _ tighten it around his throat.

“Your family was my mission,” the Soldier said, unable to let it go.

“Yes, they were.  And you completed the mission, mostly.  Could you let go now?”  Tony asked, beginning to get annoyed.  He seemed to find himself in this position rather more often than he liked.

“Are you my mission?”  The Soldier asked, and Tony carefully did not flinch.

“No,” he replied, watching his friend for any trace of recognition.  “I’m Tony.  Nic.  Your friend.  Do you remember me?”

“What is my mission?”  The Soldier repeated, and it was a demand this time.  There was still no sign of recognition in his eyes.

Tony sighed.

“Sorry about this in advance,” he said, and before the Soldier could react, confused as he was, Tony brought up his hand with the screwdriver still in it, and jammed it down into a place Tony knew was still vulnerable in the arm.

He’d been working on a way to eliminate all weak points in the arm, but hadn’t quite managed to finish the job.

He was rather grateful for that now, as the Soldier released him and staggered back, flesh hand cradling the metal one, which was jerking and twitching slightly as electric shocks ran through it.

Tony caught his breath and used the wall to pull himself into an upright position.

“You done now?”  He asked, having never broken eye contact.

Pain was obvious in his friend’s eyes, but there was recognition again, and Tony exhaled in relief.

“Tony?”  Yasha asked, and then he grimaced as another painful shock ran through his arm.

“Let me fix that for you,” Tony said, walking over fearlessly and pulling the screwdriver back out, then straightening out a few of the connections he’d damaged with his attack.

“I’ll need to do some more repairs on that later, sorry, but it should stop shocking you now,” he said, dismissing the attack entirely with a gesture of his hand.

Yasha stared at him dumbly.

“I attacked you,” he said.  “I nearly killed you.  I killed your  _ parents _ .  Why haven’t you killed me yet?  You know… You know if you ordered me to let you, I would comply.”

Tony scowled.

“That’s why.  You killed Howard and Maria Stark because you were ordered to.  You attacked me now because you were guilty and scared, and the Winter Soldier isn’t supposed to be either of those things.  I don’t blame you for it, and I don’t care.  Can we stop talking about this now?”

Yasha stared at him for a long while after that, but he didn’t say anything more, and Tony turned his scowl back to the videos of his father.

He was thinking of how he’d need to repair the weak spot in the metal arm, and maybe even find a way to make the whole thing stronger-- since damaging it with a  _ screwdriver _ , even if you knew the arm inside and out, wasn’t exactly  _ acceptable _ \-- when he realized.

“It’s an element!”  He shouted, nearly causing Yasha to jump out of his skin over in his corner, where he’d gone back to polish his knives (and to sulk, Tony thought privately).

“Tony?”  Yasha inquired, but the genius didn’t respond, fingers flying across his holoscreens as he had JARVIS made a 3D model of the cityscape.

Maybe, just maybe, he had a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bwahahahaha! Tony shall live! ^^
> 
> To be clear, neither Tony nor Yasha remember the Winter Soldier killing Howard and Maria Stark. They both just know it intellectually now, from reading the files. It’s an entirely different thing, to know you did something but to have no memory of it, but it still majorly sucks, and it haunts the poor ex-assassin.
> 
> BTW, would you guys want me to set something up other than my Tumblr, so you guys can get updates from me on delays in posting, and anons and anyone else could contact me? I’m too hesitant to turn on anon commenting because I know people can be really mean when they’re not held accountable for what they say-- although I have a thick skin for that kind of thing. I could make a Twitter just for that purpose or… I dunno. Any ideas?
> 
> Next chapter: Some of the Avengers will make another appearance!


	10. Those Moments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another short time jump forward, but not years this time, just a few weeks. Clearly, the new element worked, but we’ve seen so many renditions of that, I didn’t feel the need to show it again.
> 
> This is also unbeta'd, cause my beta's just too busy right now, so please let me know if you catch any misspellings or grammatical issues! I did my best to check it myself, but it's harder to catch your own errors.

Tony’s armored boots had barely touched the ground when he knew something was wrong.

“Uh oh,” he muttered, and the suit’s sensors alerted him to the three people closing in on his position.

He blasted off the ground again, only to have an arrow bounce off his helmet with a deadly  _ ting _ , and Tony winced, pausing as he hovered overhead.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite archer,” he said, hiding his annoyance behind snark and the voice modulator in the suit.

He turned and spotted Agent Barton as he walked out of the shadows, bow raised and another arrow in position.

JARVIS’s sensors told him it was one of the explosive arrows.  The charge wouldn’t be strong enough to break through his armor, but it could damage sections if he wasn’t careful.

Agent Romanov also walked into view from another direction, and JARVIS alerted him to Captain Rogers walked into view, his famous shield in hand and raised, completing their triangle formation around Tony.

Tony sighed.

Fury had activated his Avengers Initiative shortly after Tony’s arc reactor had been replaced and had stopped poisoning him.

Ever since, the trio had been sent after both him and Yasha, but up till now, they had managed to avoid direct contact for long.

Well.

Except that incident with the dishwasher, but Tony maintained that wasn’t entirely his fault.

It had been tempting, over the last several months, to reveal that he had been the one to find Captain Rogers, and he had buried information about the assassin duo’s mission in Budapest before SHIELD could find it, but he resisted the urge.

He still didn’t fully trust any of them, affiliated with SHIELD, and therefore Hydra, as they were.  It was a pity, really, since he was starting to like them.

“If it isn’t my favorite pain-in-the-ass vigilante,” Agent Barton joked back, interrupting Tony’s thoughts.  “I don’t suppose you’re going to come in easy this time either?”

Tony snorted, the sound coming out like static.

“I don’t particularly fancy going to prison, thanks.  Or worse, your little murderous organization sticking me in a dark hole somewhere and throwing away the key.  Too many big bad weapons still left to destroy, you know how it is.”

Behind his cowl, Tony saw the Captain frown, a movement echoed by the other two, and he refocused his attention on the captain, realizing he should be more surprised to see the long-dead icon, since this was the first time they were speaking.

“Who’s your little friend, anyway, Legolas?  I didn’t know SHIELD was in the fossil-hunting business.”

The Captain gave a start, shifting into position like he was getting ready to take a punch.  Which wouldn’t help him if Tony  _ did _ try to hit him while in the suit, Tony noted with a smirk which went unseen thanks to the helmet.  The captain had found that out already.

“We’re here to offer you a pardon for your crimes if you join SHIELD now, as an Avenger,” Captain Rogers said, and Tony’s eyebrows rose.

“Yeah,” Agent Barton added, “and I’ll even forgive you for the kitchen warfare.”

“First off, a  _ pardon for my crimes _ ?  If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were the real thing.  You sound like you come from a comic book and everything.”  Tony lowered and rose his head, making it obvious he was looking the Captain over and finding him lacking.  “Second, I realize you three are overly attached to your little club, but I’m not a joiner, and honey, you couldn’t afford me.”

Captain Rogers stepped forward, an eager expression on his face, despite Tony’s mockery.

“Look, we’re giving you a chance to be better.  This is a moment where you can choose to actually be a hero, instead of a villain.”

Tony rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, letting the others see how unimpressed he was.

“ _ Oh _ , this is one of  _ those _ moments.  How silly of me, I didn’t realize.  I love those moments.  I like to wave at them as they pass by.”

Agent Barton gaped at him, his bow lowering ever so slightly.

“Did you just… make a  _ Pirates _ reference?”

Both of the others looked confused.

“Oh, good, at least one of you understands pop culture references.  Anyway, my answer is no, I’m not joining you three musketeers.”

“If you don’t, we will bring you in anyway, and it’s going to hurt more,” Agent Romanov said quietly.

Tony snorted.

“I doubt it.  In case you don’t recall, none of you can fly!”

He blasted right up, barreling straight through the ceiling-- more than a foot of concrete-- and emerging outside, only to see--

“Well, shit,” he muttered.

\--half a dozen quinjets surrounding the building.

Agent Barton had apparently decided to take advantage of his momentary pause, as an arrow glanced off of one of his boots, and metal grappling wire disconnected from it and wrapped around his boot.

_ Not good, not good, not good _ , Tony thought.

The suit sank about a foot in the air as the archer began rappelling up the cord.  Muttering to himself, Tony leaned down and pulled the section wrapped around his armor until it was loose enough to slide off.

That left the agent free-falling more than twenty feet above the roof, however, so Tony swept down and caught the falling edge of the cord, breaking Agent Barton’s fall and dropping him only a few feet off the ground.

He turned to leave again when the suit went flying sideways as Captain America’s shield knocked him off-course.

He righted himself in mid-air, catching the shield as it began to fall back to the roof.

Tony looked over at the glaring Captain, and sighed.

“Not that your giant metal frisbee isn’t fun, but I really have to go,” he said.  “I promise I’ll return this in a moment, but first, you have twenty seconds to clear the roof before I blow the building.”

The three Avengers looked up at him, disbelief apparent in their glares.

Tony sighed.

It was a pity they were attached to Hydra, knowingly or not, because they were starting to become interesting.

“I’m sure you all can find a way out in twenty seconds.  Just jump off or something, I know you can survive it.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you if you stay,” he reuttered, launching a small device down into the warehouse, through the hole he’d made when he crashed through the ceiling.

He started to fly up, away from the warehouse, expecting the quinjets to follow him as the Avengers bolted away from the hole in the roof, the Captain simply jumping off the roof, and Agent Barton using a grappling arrow to catch himself as he lept, Agent Romanov following behind him.

But the quinjets didn’t follow him.

Instead, they fired missiles.

Tony cursed as he dodged by dropping into a steep dive.  He passed barely six feet over the Avengers’ heads and caught their astonished expressions as the missiles followed him.

He could hear Captain America shouting at Fury over their comms, which JARVIS helpfully patched him into.  It looked like the Avengers hadn’t ordered missiles being launched, but Fury wasn’t claiming responsibility either.

Hydra, then, Tony figured.

The likelihood that the Avengers and Fury weren’t members of Hydra bumped up a few points in Tony’s mind, although they all lost points for obliviousness.

Then he had to refocus on his current predicament, as he flew low, over the warehouse again.

“3...2...1,” he mumbled.

Then the warehouse exploded.

The blast took out most of the missiles, and Tony destroyed the remaining three with well-aimed repulsor blasts.

Tony sighed as the quinjets finally obeyed Fury’s screaming to hold their fire.

It looked like Hydra was done letting Iron Man make a fool out of them.

A pity, since he was nowhere near done, and judging by how angry Yasha was when Tony called him to let him know what had just happened, the Avengers and SHIELD were not done having a bad day.

\---

“Iron Man got away, sir.”  Steve reported.

He wasn’t sure what had just happened, and why the quinjets had fired on Iron Man against orders, but he was certainly going to find out.

After Fury was done cursing, Steve heard him sigh over the comms.

“Good timing, even though you failed your mission.  The Winter Soldier just decided to pay us a visit.  He’s less than twenty minutes from your current position if you take one of the quinjets now.”

“Yes, sir,” Clint answered for them all, and the three Avengers hurried to one of the waiting jets.  When they were airborne, Clint slumped into a seat, rubbing a hand through his hair and looking at Steve and Natasha.  “Well, that could have gone better.  Ready for round two?”

\---

When the three exited the jet, there was a perimeter of SHIELD agents set up around a nondescript-looking building, which was apparently the SHIELD base under attack.

One of the agents ran over to meet them, and was in the middle of explaining how the Soldier had not broken through their perimeter, and therefore still had to be inside, when Natasha jerked forward, tackling Clint to the ground just before a bullet passed through the space where his right shoulder had been a moment before.

In an instant, Steve was crouched behind his shield, looking for their mystery assailant-- but he needn’t have bothered.

A figure barreled towards him, and he barely managed to raise his shield in time for it to meet the figure’s arm.

An arm made of metal.

Steve’s eyes widened behind the shield, and he staggered under the force of the blow.

“What is this, two-for-one night on attacking the Avengers?”  Clint complained from the ground next to him.

“What, you can’t handle round two?” Natasha replied, getting off Clint and helping him up, as Steve began exchanging blows with the long-haired Soldier, trying to land a blow on his face in order to knock the Soldier’s goggles or mask off.  “Don’t hold back, or he’ll kill you,” she warned, before running to help Steve.

Clint took out his bow again and grimaced.

“As if I would,” he muttered, and Natasha shot him a look.

Okay, he had to admit, he’d brought her in against orders, and tried to do the same with Iron Man.  Maybe he had a thing for adopting stray assassins and vigilantes.

Clint sighed and pulled out an arrow, ignoring the SHIELD agents who were trying to re-form a perimeter around them.  Clint warned them to hold their fire, as they were more likely to hit one of his teammates at the moment, than the Winter Soldier.

“Director, the Winter Soldier is still here, and he’s holding his own against both Nat and Steve,” he reported, letting an arrow fly.

The man deflected it with his metal arm and went back to dodging both Steve and Natasha’s blows, unphased.

Clint gave a low whistle, and he could practically hear Fury’s blood pressure rising through the comms.

“Barton, maybe if you spent more time shooting, and less time complimenting our enemies, you might have a better chance at  _ catching _ your targets,” Fury said, practically growling into the mic.

Clint rolled his eyes.

“Alright, alright, I’m helping…”

The Winter Soldier traded blows with them for more than twenty minutes before he apparently had enough, and bolted.  The Avengers tried to follow him, but he managed to lose them, vanishing like the ghost he was rumored to be.

Behind them, the evacuated building exploded, collapsing in on itself like a sand castle.

Thus, the Avengers’ latest mission ended in a double failure, with a very pissed-off Fury yelling at them afterwards.

On the other side, Tony and Yasha ended up in a shouting match over how reckless each of them were, and how close they’d come to it becoming known that the Winter Soldier and Iron Man knew each other.

Luckily, according to JARVIS’s search of their servers, SHIELD had apparently marked the dual appearance up to coincidence and the presence of the Avengers and SHIELD.

Tony marked their intelligence down again, and sat down to work with a sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahahaha, Clint and Nat have no idea how much they owe Tony for covering for them with Budapest...
> 
> Next chapter is gonna be fun to write, it's basically another long action scene, and then... Actually, the next few all have a lot of action in them. XD


	11. It's Only a Trust Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, it’s interview season, and updating might be a little hard for the next two or three weekends...Which isn’t to say I won’t update at all in that time! It just might be a little slower. I promise this will not go on long pauses, so no freaking out, okay? :) Now enjoy this chapter-- I've been excited for this one!
> 
> In this chapter, Tony is 13, so there’s been another short time jump filled with smaller encounters between Iron Man and the Avengers, and the Winter Soldier and Hydra and the Avengers, but never at the same time.

“Tony.”

Tony twitched in his sleep, and if anyone other than JARVIS and the bots had been present, they might even have called the motion  _ cute _ , but there wasn’t.

Instead, Yasha was resorted to shouting over their comms.

“ _ Tony! _ ”

Tony jolted to his feet, one arm automatically rising to hover protectively over his arc reactor while the other was raised in the motion to blast someone with a repulsor, had he been wearing his gauntlets.

“Wha--?”  He asked, brain desperately trying to catch up to whatever was happening.

“Tony, remember that promise we made?”  Yasha repeated, and Tony froze.

“Yeah, of course… But don’t tell me the Abominable Snow-Assassin actually needs backup?”  Tony tried to joke, but he could tell his voice fell flat.

For a moment, he could only hear the sound of Yasha’s accelerated breathing, presumably as he ran.  Tony moved automatically towards the platform that would let JARVIS assemble the Iron Man suit around him before he even heard a reply.

“I need backup,” Yasha said finally, sounding resigned.  “I ran into the Avengers on my way back from the now-leveled Hydra base, and they seem to have gotten the impression that I was  _ with _ their villain of the week.  Now I have Steve and the archer on my tail, and they’re proving harder to shake than usual.  I don’t know where the little spider is, and that’s becoming a concern now too.”

JARVIS displayed Yasha’s coordinates on Tony’s HUD while Tony rocketed into the sky, a grim expression settling on his face.

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Tony replied.

When Yasha only grunted in reply, clearly conveying that he needed to save his breath for running, Tony couldn’t help himself from filling the silence-- a habit Yasha clearly didn’t mind indulging, or he would have disconnected the line.

“You know, this is what we get for not working on our public images more.  I mean, at least Iron Man seems to have  _ some _ fans, and I think I’m even rubbing off on the Avengers a little.  Legolas clearly wants to add both of us to his collection, Romanov has been a little slower in her attempts to murder me through my armor lately, and I swear even Old Man Steve seems to have a soft spot for me-- last time I ran into them… What was that, three weeks ago?... Anyway, I gave him a helping hand with one of Magneto’s band of Not-Merry Mutants that wandered out of the X-Men’s territory, and he didn’t even try to arrest me again afterwards.  I think he wanted to offer me a job again, actually, but I didn’t get close enough to hear.”

Tony scoffed as he narrowed in on Yasha’s location.

“I guess we’ll have to work on your image next.  Might take a bit more work, you know, since you’re a big, fearsome assassin and I’m clearly everyone’s favorite-- Oh shit, I just found our missing Avenger, and you’re running right at her!”  Tony added, switching gears quickly when JARVIS showed him camera footage of the Black Widow running through the inside of a building towards the roof in order to cut off Yasha.

Yasha jumped to one more building gap and skidded to an abrupt stop on a rooftop in New York City, spinning around to face his pursuers as he used his metal arm as a brake.  Agent Romanov slammed through the door to the roof moments later, now in front of him instead of catching him by surprise.

Captain America took the moment as his chance to try and bridge the gap between them, Agent Barton following visibly at a greater distance, as he used his grappling arrows to cross rooftops at a slower rate.

The Captain was only fifteen feet away, with Agent Romanov maintaining her distance at thirty feet, when Tony dropped to the roof in front of Yasha, landing in a perfect three-point position, facing the three Avengers.

Tony raised his helmeted head, catching their shocked expressions, as he stood slowly.  Behind him, he could hear Yasha breathing heavily-- and more than anything else,  _ that _ indicated how long and close the chase had been.

“Iron Man?”  Captain Rogers asked, frowning underneath his cowl as he took in the unexpected addition to their roof party.

_ Avengers, party of five, your table is ready _ , Tony thought to himself, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

“You okay?”  Tony asked instead, without turning around.  The three Avengers looked confused until behind him, Yasha grunted.

“Took your time,” he grunted, and the Avengers’ eyes widened until they were as round as saucers.

Belatedly, Tony had the realization that none of the Avengers had ever really heard Yasha speak more than two or three words, and even then they were typically in Russian, despite the muffling effect of his mask.  Hearing the assassin make a  _ joke _ probably broke their poor brains--

“Sorry, got caught in traffic,” Tony replied, shrugging one shoulder as best he could in the armor.

\--Although it was perfectly in character for Iron Man.

“Wait,” Agent Barton said, making sure his bow stayed raised this time, “you two  _ know _ each other?”

Tony thought that Captain Rogers looked particularly disappointed in him, as though he was a puppy that had just shat on the rug.  He fought down a spike of irritation with a little difficulty.

Yasha and Tony answered at the same time.

“No.”

“If I say yes, will someone make Captain America stop making that face?  I feel like I just punched freedom and liberty in the face.”

There was a pause, and Tony was the only one close enough to hear the small but distinct sigh from behind him.

“Explain yourself,” Agent Romanov ordered, and Tony rolled his eyes behind his mask, safely where she couldn’t see.

Although the way her eyes narrowed at him made him question whether she really  _ couldn’t _ see him, despite that being impossible.

“I’m not making a  _ face _ ,” the captain muttered, “this is just  _ my _ face…”

Tony snorted, but subsided when Agent Romanov strengthened the force of her glare, and when she turned it on Captain Rogers, he too straightened his expression into something more neutral.

“ _ He does have a  _ face,” Yasha whispered through the comms, and Tony smothered a laugh before it could earn him another glare.

When Agent Barton motioned for him to hurry up and start talking, Tony shrugged again, then crossed his arms.

“Look, we’re not  _ buddies _ , I’m not going to start monologuing at you like one of your villains.  The facts are, I’m not a terrorist, and  _ he’s _ not a terrorist either.  We’re just… highly misunderstood.”

“You’re blowing up our buildings.  Our  _ top-secret _ buildings.  Hell, I think you’ve blown up a few  _ I _ didn’t even have clearance to know existed, until they didn’t,” Agent Barton said, eyebrows raised.  “And you’re not a terrorist?”

Tony shrugged, but Yasha shifted slightly, tense due to the proximity of their sort-of-enemies, and the motion made Agent Romanov react, throwing something out towards Yasha.

Even as Yasha moved automatically to retaliate, reaching for a gun-- not that he intended to do more than wound her-- the device attached itself to his metal arm.

Tony could  _ hear _ the electric shocks running through the metal, even though Yasha barely reacted, pulling the device-- a  _ Widow’s Bite _ , Tony remembered from her files-- off his arm without slowing.

Before Yasha had done more than fire a warning shot, still more than six inches from hitting her, Captain Rogers had thrown his shield, aiming for it to rebound off a nearby air-conditioning unit so it would impact Yasha and not Iron Man, still blocking a direct shot.

Tony knew his friend didn’t have room to dodge the shield, and it was coming from the wrong side for him to deflect it with his metal arm as he had done so often before.

That shield would break bones like twigs, Tony knew, even if they were enhanced super-soldier bones, so his motion was instinctual.

Tony moved his suit into the path of the shield, and it made contact with a horrid  _ clang _ of metal-on-metal.

The suit was sent flying backwards, partially grazing Yasha as it skidded between him and the surprised Agent Romanov.

An arrow passed through the space where Tony had been a moment earlier, easily and automatically blocked by Yasha despite his surprise, but Yasha was too busy moving to guard his downed friend to retaliate.

Tony groaned from his position on the rough cement, warnings taking up most of the HUD.

“ _ Sir, _ ” JARVIS’s concerned voice intoned, “ _ the armor was not breached, but I must warn you against taking a direct hit of that magnitude again.  I estimate you have fractured your clavicle, and if you were an adult, the damage taken to the armor might have hit something more vital.  The reactor appears fully functional, but upon your return, I will need to run a scan to ensure the fracture was not worsened internally by the reactor’s casing. _ ”

Tony grunted and moved slowly, opening his eyes as he propped himself up into a seated position.

He blinked to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

Yasha stood nearby, guarding him from all three Avengers, but it was costing him.  The Avengers didn’t know his tells, but Tony could see that he was tiring quickly, and he was distinctly  _ not _ favoring certain areas of his body in a way that told Tony he wouldn’t be the only one recovering for a few weeks or months.

Then there was the distinctly disturbing smell of smoke that he was giving off, from several still-attached Widow’s Bites that had to be hurting him badly.

Yasha shifted when Tony got to his feet, telegraphing that he was aware of his presence, and the Avengers shifted back as well, realizing they might have a second opponent again.

“Well, this sucked.  Let’s never do it again,” Tony said, feeling rather bitter by this point, and Yasha took a step back towards him without turning around.

Realize his target was about to escape again, however, Captain Rogers lurched forward, lunging for Yasha’s face.

The way he went down told Tony what happened immediately, and he stepped forward again as Yasha stepped hurriedly back, bent in half with his arms covering his face.

“Stay away from him!”  Tony ordered, raising his arms with the repulsors ready to fire, as Yasha reached his side.

All three Avengers moved forward anyway, and Tony ground his teeth as a wave of nausea and pain hit him, his torso burning in agony every time he moved.

Agent Barton sent an arrow at them which he blasted out of the air, quickly followed by another one of Agent Romanov’s Bites, and this time, Tony couldn’t blast it quickly enough.

His shot went wide, singeing the agent a little as it passed her, but the Bite latched onto his suit.

Tony stumbled back, his knees giving out, and he discovered he’d run out of roof.

He fell backwards in what seemed to him like slow-motion, giving him time to spot Captain America’s look of horror (at what his shield had done and his impending fall, Tony guessed, since if JARVIS’s alerts were any indication at all, the damage to his suit could have produced fatal internal bleeding if the suit were filled with less metal and more human skin and bone) and Yasha’s similar alarmed gaze, hidden from the Avengers by his long hair and still-raised arms.

Yasha turned and jumped after him, coming into contact with the suit with a jarring impact, as Tony blacked out.

“ _ Tony!  Tony!  Tony, if you don’t wake up right now, we’re both going to die! _ ”

Something inside the suit shocked Tony into consciousness, in an uncomfortably literal manner.

He opened his eyes and immediately realized he must have only been out for seconds, as both he and Yasha were still falling.

“Tony,  _ do something! _ ”  Yasha shouted in his ear again, and Tony compiled, catching their faill with moments to spare.

The wind buffeted Yasha’s hair around his face as he continued to cling to the dented suit, and Tony muttered for JARVIS to make sure to check if they’d been caught on camera, and to ensure their route home would be equally anonymous.

“Remind me to make you a way to catch yourself, in the future,” Tony muttered, to no one’s amusement.

JARVIS marked down the reminder, however, and continued to display his flight path.

The return trip was long, and painful for both of them, but they made it without more incidents.  The moment JARVIS was done stripping the armor from Tony and Tony’s un-armored feet touched the workshop floor, he collapsed on his feet, Yasha lunging to catch him before his head hit the ground.

Tony didn’t notice, already unconscious.

\---

As per usual, when Iron Man or the Winter Soldier were involved, Fury was (literally) spitting mad.

“What do you  _ mean _ , you unmasked the Winter Soldier, but you didn’t see his face because  _ Iron Man fell off building and he jumped after him?! _ ”  The director shouted.

Clint and Natasha had schooled their expressions into a careful blankness, although Clint flinched slightly when Fury shouted in his face.  Steve looked torn between being disappointed in their failure, confused at their targets’ unexpected and unusual interactions, and worried over Iron Man’s injuries.

Even Natasha had admitted a concern for the man (or woman) inside, having seen the massive dent in the armor’s upper torso.  Even though Steve’s shield had impacted on the right side of the suit, away from the pilot’s heart, they were certainly suffering from massive internal injuries from such a direct, high-velocity hit.

Steve (and Clint, although he didn’t show it) had both been put-out by how little SHIELD had cared, other than to mark the injury as a potential weakness to exploit in the future.

At the end of the day, once again, the Avengers found themselves trudging to their respective rooms at SHIELD, depressed over another confrontation with their two primary targets.

This time, however, their concern was for their targets’ health, and all three began to wonder specifically who the two vigilantes were to each other, what circumstances allowed the  _ Winter Soldier _ \-- famed solo assassin that he was-- to be able to make such a leap of faith over a comrade, and exactly what  _ else _ they’d been underestimating about their supposed enemies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, if you noticed how sometimes Steve is “Steve” and sometimes he’s “Captain Roger/America,” and similarly for Nat and Clint, that’s not a mistake. Tony and Yasha are more casual when talking to each other or thinking about them than when facing off with them or addressing them in-costume, so what I type their names as is supposed to reflect that.
> 
> Also, Thor would be appearing on Earth sometime in this year, but while he obviously is on SHIELD’s radar, and therefore JARVIS’s, I’m skipping over it for now due to plot flow, but may do a flashback chapter later.
> 
> (Next chapter: Tony finds a new way to bring amusement (read: grief) to others, while he's out of commission and healing. >;P)


	12. The Mechanic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. This was fun to write.
> 
> IMPORTANT: Please note! I created a “series” for this fic because the bonus chapters I promised are going to go in a separate fic, since if I put them at the end, they’d run the flow of this fic and the ending. So far the ones I have planned are pretty much just crack. XD I’ll take requests, probably, once you guys see the first couple. If you’re only subscribed to this fic, you might want to switch that to the series so you’ll see them!
> 
> Okay, please enjoy!

“Well, this is a shitty way to spend my birthday,” Tony complained from his position on the couch in his workshop, and Yasha rolled his eyes.

“If you listened to JARVIS and I when we told you not to go out in the suit until your bones healed, you’d be fine by now,” Yasha replied.

Tony sent him a glare which vanished when Yasha passed him a bag of greasy fast food.

“Okay, the day is getting better.  But you don’t get to talk, you were done healing in a couple days.  Damn super-soldier healing… If I end up with a complex, you’re going to have no one to blame but yourself and Captain Spangles.”

Yasha didn’t bother replying, fully willing to listen to the young genius rant and complain if it kept him within sight, out of the suit, and out of further trouble.

He’d been sitting quietly for five minutes, disassembling and cleaning his guns, when Tony caught his attention again with a wrench, purposefully thrown wide to miss him.  (Even Tony wasn’t stupid enough to actually try to do something like bounce it off the metal arm.)

(Again.)

Yasha glanced up, an unimpressed look on his face.

“Oy, I knew you weren’t listening to me.  I  _ said _ , you should let me install your new arm.  You could practice with it, and I don’t have to get up much to install it at this point, if you sit over here.”  Tony patted the low table next to the couch.

Yasha eyed him, eyed the gun he was cleaning, and quickly calculated the likelihood that he would get any peace if he didn’t comply.

“...You can install the new arm.”

\---

“Okay, now we’re going to start with 1% power.  I tried more my first time and… well, let’s not repeat that again, shall we?”

Yasha glared at him.

“No, go on.  Finish that thought.   _ What _ exactly did you do the first time you tried to fly in here?”

Tony swallowed nervously, then pasted a huge grin on his face.

“It’s really not important.  Anyway!  If you rotate your wrist the way I showed you, the plates will shift and-- yeah, just like that.  So you have a full-strength repulsor in your palm, and there’s miniature ones that slide out at the same time in your elbow and shoulder, see?”

Tony pointed out the newly-revealed miniature repulsors, tapping on the metal arm with a pen.

“I have plans to attach a few more to your assassin-suit, so it will be easier to stabilize your flight, but I’m still working on how to include a power source without adding a potential vulnerability.  You, after all, run into far more close-quarters combat than I do, so I can’t just attach an arc reactor to your suit and expect it to stay in one piece.  And if this baby explodes,” Tony said, tapping on his reactor, “it’ll take out half the city.  So… I’m not giving you one.  For now, you’ll have more miniature ones in your boots, easy to keep hidden but strong enough to counter the one in your arm.”

Yasha flexed the new version, rolling and flexing the metal muscles.  They felt no different than before, despite the new additions and the arc reactor now inside it, except for the whole thing being lighter.  It ached far less than its predecessor.

“So this will let me fly like you do in your armor?”  He asked.

Tony shook his head.

“It’s not quite as strong, and without a second one in your other palm, it would be too hard to steer.  Think of it more like… You know those parkour moves you and Cap keep throwing around?  This will help with things like that.  Wall running, mid-air spins and kicks, that sort of thing.  You could probably manage to run along or up a wall for a while, if you’re careful to keep the angles right.  I’m not sure of the specifics, that’s why we’re going to run tests!”

Tony grinned, and Yasha massaged his forehead with his flesh hand.

It was going to be a long day.

\---

When Yasha was exhausted and three of the cars Tony had parked at the far end of the workshop had been destroyed, they called it a night, despite it still being mid-day.

Tony bemoaned the loss of the cars, which he’d been trying to turn into less-shitty versions of Howard’s flying car, but self-driving-- because people were dumb enough on the road without there being  _ no road _ \-- but he was grinning as he dropped back onto the couch, tablet in his lap.

Yasha had gone upstairs to sleep off his injuries, and Tony was idly browsing his various news feeds when JARVIS alerted him to one of Doctor Doom’s Doom Bots (Tony rolled his eyes at the name) running around downtown causing chaos, having escaped the perimeter the Fantastic Four had been maintaining near the Baxter Building.

Tony quickly brought up SHIELD’s internal systems, but they seemed to be as-of-yet unaware, since the major news networks hadn’t picked up on the story yet, under the impression that the Fantastic Four still had things contained.

He eyed the suit, but one glance at his still-bandaged torso nixed that idea.  He could call Yasha back down, but the poor guy was exhausted, and Doom Bots were dumb but getting more durable all the time.

Tony sighed, and brought up a different screen on his tablet.

“Happy birthday to me,” he muttered, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.  “Time to make someone else’s day worse than mine…”

\---

Clint didn’t hear the television speakers when they first turned on.

With his main set of hearing aids still being repaired from his last mission, and his spares lying on the corner of his bed, the world was almost completely silent.

When he pulled his head out of the Avengers’ shared kitchen fridge, he did see the television flashing on and off, however.

And he could clearly see the words displayed on the screen, which stopped flashing and stayed on, displaying a black background with white text.

_ OH GOOD,  _ it showed.   _ YOU NOTICED.  AT LEAST YOU AREN’T BLIND TOO.  THAT WOULD MAKE THIS HARDER. _

“What the hell?”  Clint exclaimed, despite not being able to hear himself clearly.

_ THE AVENGERS HAVE AN ERRAND TO RUN,  _ displayed next.

Then the screen flickered again to show camera footage of a Doom Boot downtown, clearly taken on someone’s cell phone camera, before changing into the same view, but on a live feed from a satellite.

(If Clint had to hazard a guess, he’d bet it was one of SHIELD’s satellites.)

The screen went black again as Clint watched.

_ NOW GO ASSEMBLE THE AVENGERS, _ the television ordered.   _ THERE WEREN’T ANY SCREENS HANDY NEAR THEM.  CHOP CHOP, BIRDSEYE. _

Then the television turned itself off again, and Clint was left staring, Natasha’s container of leftovers (with a post-it note stuck to it threatening Clint’s life if he stole her food again) forgotten in his hand.

Then he cursed, chucked the container back into the fridge, and took off running.

\---

“Let me get this straight,” Steve said once Clint had herded the two others onto their quinjet.  “We’re going on a mission because a television told you there was a Doom Bot in the city?”

“It was a hacker,” Natasha said evenly, but Clint noticed her slightly narrowed eyes.

Everyone had secrets, but when you worked for a top-secret spy organization, you tended to have more than the general public.

Clint shared her concerns, and he knew they were both thinking the same thing-- both of them had been at risk of being abandoned by even SHIELD after their mission in Budapest, and how badly it had gone wrong, but overnight, all records of the mission seemed to vanish.

When camera footage was recovered, it was all conveniently too blurry, corrupted, or otherwise missing during the critical points of the mission, which could have ended both their careers.

If they had a hacker now, it stood to reason that they could have had one then too.

So Clint wasn’t as disturbed by the concept as he probably should have been, though that didn’t mean the hacker was on their side-- after all, if they were responsible for the missing Budapest files, that meant they probably  _ had _ the files.

“I understand that,” Steve continued, shooting Natasha a look.  “But we’re listening to someone who illegally hacked SHIELD?”

“It was that or leave the Doom Bot to destroy downtown,” Clint pointed out, and Steve sighed, but nodded in agreement.

“Okay, we’re doing this.  But then we’re telling Director Fury when we get back.”

Clint rolled his eyes.

Possibly ally or not--

“We did that before we left, Steve,” Natasha reassured him.

Clint groaned when one of the screens near his position in the pilot’s seat went blank.  He guessed another had done the same behind him by the sudden tense silence behind him.

_ FEEL FREE TO ALERT THE ANGRY PIRATE, _ the screens displayed, and with his hearing aids now in, Clint could hear a digitized voice reading the words out loud too.

It wasn’t a voice modulator, Clint noted, like Iron Man used.  This was much less human-sounding, likely a voice-to-text program with an automated voice.  There were both male and female voices used in the program, and the result sounded especially genderless.

_ AFTER ALL, HIS BAND OF GENIUSES DIDN’T EVEN KNOW I WAS IN THEIR SYSTEM.  BUT MEANWHILE, INCOMING AT YOUR EIGHT O'CLOCK _ .

Clint glanced at one of his screens, cursed, and sent the quinjet into a steep dive.

“This is your stop!”  He called back at the other two, as soon as he was low enough to the ground.

He opened the back entrance to the plane and the jet’s sensors alerted him to Steve’s drop, Natasha following shortly afterwards, so he could catch her before impact.  It was a routine they’d all practiced after one too many jumps off of buildings had left Natasha or Clint with a nearly-broken ankle.

One good throw of the shield later, and the Doom Bot was distracted, allowing Clint to focus on landing the quinjet.

_ OH GET GOING ALREADY, _ the hacker interrupted.   _ THEY NEED YOU MORE THAN THE PLANE DOES. _

Clint glared at the screen, even though it didn’t make sense to do so.  Clearly, the hacker could see them, or at least hear them, seeing as there weren’t any known cameras in the jet.

“Yeah, in case you’ve forgotten, this plane needs a pilot,” Clint pointed out, “and I’m not crashing into a building just because you’re trying to rush me.”

Despite the lack of a response, Clint had the distinct impression that their hacker, wherever they were, had just sighed.

_ I’LL HANDLE THE PLANE.  HONESTLY, JUST BECAUSE FURY’S MINIONS CAN’T CODE A HALFWAY DECENT AUTOPILOT, THAT DOESN’T MEAN I CAN’T. _

When Clint didn’t immediately release his grip on the controls, the screen flickered.

  1. _GET OUT.  SHOO._



The controls shuddered on their own, under Clint’s hands, and began to move without his input.  The quinjet quickly turned around, hovering over a roof within eyesight of Steve and Natasha, who were trying to contain the robot.

Clint hesitantly stood, and when the plane didn’t immediately start to spin into a nosedive, he walked towards the back, taking out his bow and readying an arrow.

“Hey,” he called back, “you know this isn’t a video game, right?  Don’t crash daddy’s jet.”

The comm in his ear made the quiet click which meant he’d just been switched to a private line.

_ GET OUT, ALREADY _ , the same automated voice repeated.   _ I WON’T SAY IT AGAIN. _

The entire plane tilted, making Clint lose his balance and fall the last couple feet out of the back of the plane and onto the roof of the building.

Clint grunted, but brushed himself off and immediately began tracking the robot as it flew above the two other Avengers.

“You know this doesn’t mean we trust you, right?”  Clint asked, not having heard another click in his ear again.

_ OF COURSE NOT _ , the voice replied, and Clint released his first arrow.

\---

After they’d destroyed the Doom Bot and stood through the Fantastic Four’s apologies for its escape in the first place, the trio trudged back into the quinjet, Steve and Natasha both giving it suspicious looks when it landed near them and then took off without anyone in the pilot’s seat.

Both of them stared at Clint when he dropped into the co-pilot’s seat and promptly ignored the controls, leaning the chair back as he nursed a sore spot where the robot had managed to punch him in the ribs after he’d run out of arrows.

“Clint?”  Natasha asked, and her voice was as cold as ice.

He winced.

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t invite this, I’m just taking advantage after the fact.  Blame our hacker.”  He waved one hand loosely at the plane’s controls.

The hacker apparently took that as their cue to chime in, as the screens went dark again.

_ YOU THREE ARE RATHER UNGRATEFUL, CONSIDERING NO ONE WAS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT A ROBOT DESTROYING ITS WAY THROUGH DOWNTOWN _ , it displayed, and the voice narrated.

“You’re hacking the U.S. government,” Steve said, and Clint winced.  His Captain America voice was on full display, in all its honorable, disapproving glory.  “Are we supposed to thank you?  You could just as easily set a trap and lead the Doom Bots to us next time.”

Clint thought their hacker was probably sighing again.  Or rolling their eyes.

_ YOU’RE CONFUSING WHAT IS LEGAL WITH WHAT IS RIGHT, CAP, _ the hacker replied.   _ AND BURNING BRIDGES BEFORE YOU REACH THEM.  I AM WELL AWARE THAT I AM NOT A GOOD PERSON, BUT DO YOU REALLY MEAN TO TELL ME THAT YOU WOULD PREFER I KNOW ABOUT THE DOOM BOT AND NOT REPORT IT TO YOU, INSTEAD OF HACKING YOU IN ORDER TO LET YOU KNOW?  YOU THREE DON’T EXACTLY HAVE A HOTLINE, YOU KNOW. _

Clint groaned quietly.

Everyone they interacted with either tried to kill them, snark at them, or both.

He wasn’t quite sure which this one was going to be, but they’d already fulfilled the snark quota.

Steve quieted, frowning at the screen, and Clint knew he was angsting over the hacker’s gray area of morality and not enjoying it.

He cleared his throat, since Natasha didn’t seem like she was going to pitch in.

“Hey, since you sound like this isn’t going to be a one-time deal, how about giving us a name?”

Steve glanced at him, annoyed.

“Clint, that’s a crimi-- a  _ hacker _ , not a  _ pet _ .  We’re not keeping it, Director Fury will stop them when we get back.”

The hacker was already replying, though.

_ HEY, I MIGHT HAVE SENT YOU ON AN ERRAND, BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN I’M GOING TO TELL YOU WHO I AM _ .

“No,” Steve muttered, “of course not, because all we need is another faceless law-breaker running around.”

_ I WILL, HOWEVER, _ the hacker continued, either not hearing Steve’s utterance or ignoring it,  _ LET YOU CALL ME BY MY HANDLE. _

“Hacker name,” Natasha explained when Steve frowned.

_ I AM THE MECHANIC.  BUT YOU CAN CALL ME NIC FOR SHORT, IF THAT’S TOO MANY SYLLABLES FOR YOUR BRAINS TO HANDLE. _

Clint was rolling his eyes when Natasha grabbed him by the arm and hauled him into the back of the plane, away from the cockpit.

“Ow, Nat,” he said, rubbing his arm where she’d gripped it.  “What’s wrong?”

“The Mechanic has been on SHIELD’s radar before,” she said, too quietly for microphones to pick up.  “No one knows who they are, but they’ve been in every government system on the planet.  For a while, we thought they were part of a terrorist group, but every time, it turned out that someone was just imitating their code, and the hacker wasn’t involved.  They’re on Fury’s recruit-or-retire list.”

_ WELL, THAT’S GOOD TO KNOW _ , the voice interrupted, and they turned to see words displaying on the closest screen, still.  At the interjection, Steve also looked over, frowning in confusion at the pair as they looked up.

_ NOT THAT I DIDN’T KNOW ALREADY, _ the hacker continued, and Clint let his eyes roll again.

Of course their hacker could hear them.  The Mechanic was rapidly proving to be far beyond the skill level of SHIELD’s entire tech department.

_ I’D RATHER NOT BE CAUGHT OR KILLED, THOUGH, SO I’M AFRAID THE OLD MAN WILL HAVE TO KEEP WISHING.  NOW, WE HAVE ARRIVED AT YOUR DESTINATION, PLEASE DO NOT EXIT THE PLANE UNTIL THE FASTEN-SEATBELTS SIGN HAS TURNED OFF. _

The screens flickered once more and then returned to their normal states, although the plane continued to pilot itself until the engines were completely off.

Natasha just looked at Clint, who shrugged.

“Look, this one’s not an assassin, but I’ll see what I can do.  Gotta recruit ‘em all, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to post this one a few days ago, on my birthday, but it didn’t work out. I hope you enjoyed it anyway!
> 
> Next time: Someone is going to get a bath, and someone else is going fishing. All in a day for the Tony and the Avengers, right?... Right?


	13. Just Add Water and Shake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is what it is because for some reason I got “instant vigilante/hero: just add water and shake!” stuck in my head, but that both didn’t really make sense and was too long. XD
> 
> I’m really sorry this took me so long to release! This fall has exploded in my face, and I’ve just been overloaded with work, plus I’ve had vertigo and nausea this entire time as well. If it continues as it has been, I will update as frequently as I can, and catch up on Thanksgiving/Fall Break and Winter Break.

“ _Sir?_ ”

Tony looked up when JARVIS spoke over his music, pausing in the middle of the activation sequence which would permanently copy his rudimentary autopilot system into the Avengers’ quinjet.

“Yeah, J?”

“ _The Avengers are attempting to contact The Mechanic.  They seem to think he could locate Iron Man for them._ ”

Tony jolted to his feet.

“Do they know?  Did they figure out that I’m both of them?”

His mind was already racing with plans-- exactly how to get both himself and Yasha out of the country (if Yasha chose to run too) without detection-- but he was brought up short by JARVIS’s response.

“ _No, Sir.  They seem to be hoping The Mechanic can hack the city’s surveillance cameras and pass on a message._ ”

Tony sighed, running his hands through his hair.

“Patch me through with the usual settings, as Nic.”

JARVIS did so at once, and immediately Tony’s ears were assaulted by the sounds of a battle.

Tony silently motioned for JARVIS to locate the Avengers and bring up the camera footage.

He did so, and Tony blinked.

_WOW_ , Tony said through his mic, and he knew the Avengers heard him when Steve and Clint flinched.   _I HELP YOU A COUPLE TIMES, AND YOU CAN’T SURVIVE WITHOUT ME NOW?_

Clint snorted into his comm as he shot another arm-- limb-- _oh hell_ , Tony thought, resisting the urge to laugh in disbelief.

“Oh look, suddenly I don’t remember why I missed you,” he said.  “But while I love the snark and all-- I live for it, really-- could we maybe do this later, when there isn’t an army of giant octopus attacking Manhattan?”

Tony rolled his eyes.

_FIRST, THE PLURAL OF OCTOPUS IS OCTOPODES.  SECOND, THOSE ARE ACTUALLY SQUID.  COUNT THE LIMBS._

“Not helping!”  Clint shouted as he leapt through a shop window in order to dodge a swinging tentacle.

“Look, _Nic_ , are you going to help us reach Iron Man or not?”  Steve asked, clearly irritated.

_YEAH, YEAH_ , Tony replied, running his hands through his hair again.   _I ALREADY FOUND IRON MAN, AND I’LL SEND HIM YOUR WAY_.

“Thank you,” the captain replied, and Tony exhaled in surprise.

_DON’T MENTION IT_ , he said.

_NO REALLY, DON’T_ , he added, after a moment’s thought, then disconnected the call with an audible _click_ for the Avengers’ benefit.

JARVIS had already prepared the suit without needing to be given an instruction to do so, and Tony was in the air in less than five minutes, rocketing towards the island.

When he arrived, Clint was swinging from one of his grappling arrows, being whipped around by the squid he’d shot it into.

“How are things hanging over there?”  Tony said, unable to help himself.

He could see Clint glaring at him while the squid continued to fling him about.

“Ha.  Ha.  Ha.”  Clint said dryly.  “I don’t suppose you could lend a hand?  And how the hell did you get into our comms?”

“You got your new friend to summon me to help, it’s only fair they make communicating a little easier,” Tony lied easily, flying over and picking up the archer by the back of his suit.

Clint released his arrow’s cord from his bow and straps on his arm the moment the suit took his weight instead, and Tony deposited him on a roof a short distance away before turning around to distract the giant squid.

Tony was kept busy, herding the squid away from buildings and back towards the sea with flares and repulsor blasts, barely tracking the other Avengers except when JARVIS warned him that one of them needed a mid-air save or an assist.

It took hours to corral the squid, and none of the Avengers, nor Tony, were particularly happy by the end of it, alternately soaked or covered in ink.

Steve was taking care of the last squid with Tony’s help while Clint and Natasha deviated in order to deal with the villain, when Steve’s stamina ran out for a moment, and the squid got in a lucky shot.

He managed to get the shield between himself and the tentacle in time, but the force of the swat sent him flying off the pier and out towards open water.

Tony cursed as the squid turned, finally deciding to return to its natural habitat instead of focusing on the flying annoyance buzzing around its head.

“JARVIS, what were those results of the waterproof tests, again?”  He asked, floating above the water where Steve had disappeared.

“ _The suit, in its fully-functional state, is waterproof, Sir,_ ” JARVIS replied promptly.  “ _In its current state, however, you will run out of air in sixty-five seconds_.”

Tony groaned.

“Better make it count, then,” he muttered, and dived into the water.

Using his repulsors and the light of the arc reactor as flashlights, Tony found Steve rather quickly, still holding his shield in a death-grip as he floated motionless at the bottom.

Tony cursed, blasting towards him as water continued to fill the suit internally.  He had a feeling this was going to feature in his nightmares soon, if he didn’t hurry up-- assuming he survived to have dreams at all.

It took seventy-three seconds, all told, to fish the captain out of the water, and afterwards, Tony bent over on the ground next to the unconscious Avenger, opening his faceplate in order to suck in a huge gasp of air.

As soon as he could breathe, Tony reached over to Steve and scanned his vitals.

Cursing, he glanced down at his suit, knowing he had nothing that would help.

“JARVIS, there’s nothing we could use as a defibrillator nearby?”  He asked desperately.

“ _No, Sir_ ,” the reply came immediately and with sorrow in his tone.

Tony cursed again, and in a frantic motion, slammed his armored fist down over the captain’s chest--

\--Who jerked upwards, water spurting out of his mouth as his eyes flew open, immediately beginning to shake as he hack-coughed, sucking air back into his lungs like the drowning man he’d nearly been.

After a couple minutes passed and the shaking didn’t stop, Tony realized some of the water on Steve’s face were from tears, not the ocean, and his brain spun to a halt.

Tony stood quickly, afraid to hover to close since the man clearly wouldn’t want a _vigilante_ anywhere near him while he was in such a compromising position.  He didn’t want to leave him alone, however, so it didn’t take long to realize what he needed to do.

\---

“I’m never eating squid again in my life,” Clint groaned, pulling off one of his boots and dumping water out of it while the police took the villain into custody, awaiting SHIELD’s arrival.

Natasha didn’t reply, frowning slightly as she looked around.

“Steve is still missing, and I haven’t seen Iron Man in a while, have you?”  She asked.

Clint’s frown echoed hers as he looked around.

“Maybe Steve decided to try arresting Iron Man again?”  He suggested, sounding nearly hopeful, because that meant they both were okay.

Clint blinked, rewinding that thought in his brain, and winced internally when he realized he’d been just as worried for Iron Man as for his teammate.

“Steve?”  She spoke into the comms, but there was no response.

The two spies exchanged glances again, and Clint had to swallow down a bout of worry.

“I’ll find a vantage point and start looking,” he said, only to blink as something metal whizzed by him, landing somewhere near Natasha’s feet.

“What the--” he exclaimed, glancing upwards, only to turn back as Natasha was yanked into the air abruptly.

When Clint looked up once again, his jaw dropped.

He could excuse his lack of control since it wasn’t every day one saw one’s partner dangling from Iron Man’s grip by her leg like a fish on a line.

The wire looked an awful lot like his own grappling arrows, except it had somehow wrapped itself around Natasha’s leg, gripping her angle instead of impaling it with an arrow like Clint’s would have.

The resulting image was almost hilarious, except Clint knew better than to voice his amusement by the look on Natasha’s face, as she bent in half to grip the cord in her hands and began hauling herself up the cord.

Despite the armor, Iron Man somehow looked distinctly alarmed at this new development, his fish on a hook having suddenly become a spider on a thread, and he rapidly flew off in the direction of the water.

Clint suppressed a sneaking feeling of dread and hauled himself to his feet, following at a slower pace.

\---

The crazy red-headed assassin was nearly three-fourths of the way up the cord when Tony reached Steve again, and immediately released his grip as soon as she was close enough to the ground.

She fell and removed the cord from her foot in one graceful movement, glaring daggers at him, where he hovered above her, before turning to the still-shuddering Captain America.

A few quick glances between Steve’s soaked suit and the nearby water clearly told her what had occurred, and to Tony’s relief, she looked significantly less homicidal when she turned to look at the suit again and gave a single nod.

Tony took that as a dismissal, and flew back towards the city before SHIELD could arrive, passing by Clint overhead as the archer jogged back towards his teammates.

Later that evening, Tony was sitting in front of his keyboard, agitated and twitching around in nervous movements as he tried to remind himself that the Avengers still deserved _some_ measure of privacy, and Steve Rogers likely wouldn’t appreciate him hacking in order to check on his condition.

Besides, he couldn’t exactly tell the man that the Avengers’ hacker and their favorite vigilante were the same person.

He was about to finally turn away, deciding to practice how he was going to tell Yasha about this when he got back from the technological deadzone their latest Hydra target was in, when JARVIS alerted him to an attempt to contact the Mechanic again.

Tony sat back down, motioning for JARVIS to patch him into the Avengers’ comms again.

“--ic?”  Steve’s voice sounded through Tony’s speakers.  “Are you there?”

Tony sucked in air.

_HELLO CAPTAIN,_ Tony replied solemnly.   _I HEARD YOU HAD A BIT OF A ROUGH DAY.  I HOPE YOU’RE NOT PLANNING TO END IT ON A HIGH NOTE BY TRYING TO CATCH ME AGAIN?_

Surprisingly, Steve snorted once.

“No, not right now.  I’m not that ungrateful.  You did help us, after all.”

Tony frowned slightly.

_HOW CAN I BE OF SERVICE, THEN?_  He asked.

Steve seemed to hesitate, remaining quiet for a moment.

“You found Iron Man once already today.  Could you do it again?”

Tony blinked, raising an eyebrow.  He hoped he wasn’t going to accept, only to get another “thanks but I’m still going to arrest you as soon as I can” speech.

_I COULD DO THAT_. _ARE YOU PLANNING ON ARRESTING HIM AGAIN?_

Steve sighed.

“No, I just want to thank him in person.  He...really did a good thing, today.”

Tony leaned backwards, silent for a moment as he thought.

“Nic?”  Steve asked, sounding a little concerned, when he took too long to answer.

_I’LL TELL HIM.  FIND A ROOF DOWNTOWN AND HE’LL FIND YOU_.

\---

For the second time that day, Tony found himself flying to a meeting he had organized for himself, but this time he wasn’t heading into a battle zone, even if it still felt a little like he was.

“If this is going to become a regular thing,” Tony said, startling a plain-clothed but still-helmeted Steve into whirling around to face him, “I should just give you a call button.  I’m not particularly used to being summoned like a pet.”

Steve frowned under his mask, his hands fidgeting slightly.

Tony’s mouth twitched into a smile beneath his mask.  He enjoyed flustering the stiff captain.

“I didn’t meant to insult you by... summoning you here.  I...”  He paused, shoved his hands in his pockets, and huffed out a breath, angry at himself.

His eyes darted up to meet the suit’s lit-up eye sockets, and Tony held his gaze, even though the captain couldn’t know.

“Thank you,” Steve said, and Tony knew it was sincere.  “You... really saved me today.”

Tony smirked behind the mask.

“Not for the first time,” he pointed out, “and probably not for the last, unless you do manage to catch me or my friend one of these days.”

Steve sighed, rubbing his hand against the short hairs on the back of his neck.

“You know,” he began, a small sardonic smile threatening to take over his face, “this would be a lot easier if you weren’t so bad at being a villain.”

Tony raised an eyebrow and tilted his head, his smirk widening until it showed teeth.

“Oh, I just can’t stand these nobodies disgracing the villain title,” Tony said, and knew Steve didn’t believe him when his tiny smile grew.

“If you think I’m not maintaining my villain persona enough, though, I suppose I could get a cat.  It could live in my lair and I could pick it up cat food on my way back from thwarting you lot again.  I bet the Winter Soldier would just love that, they could be stern and aloof together.”

Steve’s eyes widened as he blinked, then shook his head, looking like that visual had just snuck itself into his brain and he was trying to shake it loose.

“Why does getting a cat help you be a better villain?”  He asked.

Tony rolled his eyes.

“Right, you’re a fossil, I keep forgetting.  You should ask Feathers sometime, I’m sure he’d love to explain it  Anyway, if that’s it, I’ll be off.”

Tony paused as he turned away, glancing back for a moment.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Cap,” he said, and flew away.

\---

During the Avengers’ debriefing at SHIELD the next morning, Steve was surprised to see how SHIELD disregarded Iron Man’s help entirely, labeling it irrelevant and not revising their opinions of the vigilante at all.

He and Clint were listening to another nameless agent speaking about Iron Man, rambling on about all the illegal things he had done-- as if they needed reminding-- when Steve ran out of patience.

“You know, for all those numbers, we have no proof of Iron Man ever letting a civilian come to harm on purpose,” he said.  “In fact, several times we’ve caught him on camera, taking attacks head-on instead of dodging in order to protect innocents.”

Clint and Natasha are both staring at him like he’s grown a second head, making Steve realize how unreasonable he’d been in the past.

He winced internally, and thinks he sees a small, proud twinkle appear in Natasha’s eye.

Steve ignored it, still focused on the now-irritated agent.

“Captain America doesn’t approve of law breakers,” the agent said, and Steve glared.

“ _Captain America_ can admit when he’s wrong, and Steve Rogers doesn’t blindly follow orders.  I’d forgotten that, a little.  Iron Man isn’t half as bad as you seem to want us to believe,” Steve declared, and earns himself a sharp nod of approval from Clint, too.

Steve tried not to take offense when the agent just turned and left the room, grumbling under his breath about _orders_ and _Captain America_ , as if annoyed that he was able to think for himself and come up with his own conclusions.

He failed, just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter instead of sleeping, so please forgive any mistakes!
> 
> Thank you all so much for your kudos and comments, they really mean a lot to me!
> 
> EDIT: Thanks to zeugmaqueen for the grammar check on the plural of "octopus," which apparently is "octopodes" and not "octopi." ^^ (Despite my browser's spellchecker, which insists it isn't a word.)
> 
> Next time:  
> Tony has to give his own version of a trust fall, and makes important business decisions with the help of Pepper Potts.  
> Also, the Avengers get a change of scenery.


	14. Extending Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry for the long gap between updates again! November is my own personal hell, with at least one exam every other week, midterms, two group projects, etc etc etc...and job interviews. Those are finally done, but now I have to make a very large decision this week, so that’s been stressful too. Anyway, onto what Tony’s been doing!  
> #iupdatedinsteadofsleeping  
> EDIT: I almost forgot, I meant to make this one-question poll for you guys. Please take the time to answer, if you would! https://goo.gl/iY9dYy

“Do I have to?”  Tony asked, sending a pleading expression towards Yasha, who was choosing to ignore him in favor of cleaning his guns and knives, again.

“ _ I am afraid it is not possible to make an investment of that magnitude without an adult present _ ,” JARVIS answered calmly, and Tony groaned.

“Why doesn’t Yasha count?”  He asked, and Yasha looked up long enough to give the young genius a flat stare.

Tony rethought how the man didn’t exactly  _ blend in _ , and grimaced.

“Okay, so not Yasha.  But you said Pepper has been trying to figure out what happened to... to Yinsen’s kid, right?  If I go to her for this, I’m going to need to tell her that I’m Tony Stark... and that I’m the mystery engineer.”

“ _ If it helps, Sir, I believe she will not misuse your trust _ ,” JARVIS replied, unhelpfully.

Tony dropped his head back to his worktable, and one hand stuck down to tap nervously at the arc reactor again.

“Okay, fine.  It’ll be worth it to drive those bastards out of business once and for all, I guess...”

Which was how Tony found himself being dropped off at Arc Industries’ headquarters, and walking through the front doors while Yasha drove off.

He walked up to the front desk with confidence, completely disregarding how out-of-place he appeared, in his artistically-faded ACDC t-shirt and clean but well-worn jeans.

He didn’t recognize the man behind the desk, and guessed he must have been a new hire, since he had paid Yinsen many a visit when Yinsen was too busy to pick up his latest technologically marvel from the workshop, under the guise of visiting his adopted father.

“I’m here to see Virginia Potts,” Tony said, and watched the security guard look him over.

“Yeah, nice try, kid.  The CEO only takes appointments, and I don’t think you’re on her list,” the guard replied, nearly rolling his eyes as he turned away again.  “Students are only allowed on pre-scheduled school tours.”

Tony didn’t groan, or huff angrily, or any of the things he wanted to do, to express his displeasure at being treated like a normal kid, once again.  He knew how to handle adults, now.

“I think you’ll find I  _ am _ on her list,” he said, and a shark-like smile crawled onto his face.

If Yasha had been around, he would have known that, in a battle situation, things were about to start exploding.

“Look for an appointment just labeled Nic,” he continued.

The guard snorted.

“Fine, kid, I’ll check for a...”  The guard’s voice trailed off as the computer, no doubt, informed him that he was speaking to someone who not only had an appointment with the CEO, but also was listed (no picture included) as the son of the previous CEO and co-founder of the company.

“I’m sorry, Sir, I’ll inform Ms. Potts that you have arrived.  I’ll have someone show you to the--”

Tony breezed past the man, ignoring the guard’s protests as he walked into the elevators.

“I know the way,” he said, as the doors closed in the still-wide-eyed guard’s face.

When the doors opened again, Tony walked into Yinsen’s old office without being stopped again, and Pepper looked up from her seat, quickly standing.

“Nic,” she greeted him, smiling a bit worriedly.  “I was surprised when my assistant told me you’d asked to see me, and I’m so sorry for your loss.  I tried to reach out after your father passed, but a Mr. Jarvis told me that you didn’t want to talk to anyone.”

Tony gave her a half-smile.

“Sorry about that.  I...Thanks for your concern,” he added, fidgeting slightly.  “I’m not here about that, though.  I’m here to give you this in person, this time.”

Pepper looked confused as Tony turned to dig around in his small messenger bag, and then he brought out the prototype solar-powered battery he’d promised her, in his role as the nameless engineer of Arc Industries.

She just stared at the small device for a moment, and then Tony saw comprehension dawn on her face.  Her eyes flickered up to meet his, and her jaw dropped slightly, before she remembered herself and straightened.

“No wonder your father was adamant that the engineer was to remain anonymous,” she commented, and Tony smiled.

“Yes, we knew most people wouldn’t react well to the news that A.I.’s main engineer was a kid, even if I  _ am _ a genius.”

“And a modest one, too,” Pepper commented, a small smile on her face, as she stepped around her desk.

“Just stating a fact,” Tony replied, shaking her offered hand.

“Anyway, I doubt you just came here to out yourself as the mystery engineer,” she said, sitting down again.  “What do you need from me?”

“Well,” Tony said, “first off, my real name is Tony Stark, and I need your help to buy back my family’s building and drive my father’s company out of business.”

Pepper blinked, and Tony grinned like a shark again.

\---

By the time he was done with Pepper Potts, the building that had previously been the failing Stane Industries’ New York headquarters now belonged to Tony, under several smaller corporations which were eventually owned by Arc Industries.  Distracted by the frankly unreasonable amount of paperwork destroying another company required, Tony didn’t realize JARVIS had been trying to get his attention through his phone until he’d left.

As soon as he was out the main doors, he called the AI back.

“JARVIS, what’s wrong?”

“ _ Sir, you are needed here _ ,” JARVIS said, worryingly, and Tony paid a taxi operator a 400% tip in order to break nearly every traffic law on the way back to his building.

When he ran downstairs into the basement, he saw Yasha, pacing like a caged wolf.

“What happened?”  Tony asked, and when Yasha didn’t reply, he repeated the question to JARVIS.

“ _ I was tracking the Avengers’ movements as you requested, Sir, and the details of their current mission has caused Mister Yasha distress _ .”

“What is the mission?”  Tony asked again, watching his friend move.

“ _ Director Fury sent them to investigate illegal activity originating out of a base which belongs to Hydra _ .”

Tony blinked.

“Pierce didn’t stop him?  Or has Fury figured it out?”

“ _ It appears that the director authorized the mission before a Hydra agent had a chance to prevent it.  The base is not one of the ones in SHIELD’s databases, but Hydra appears to have possibly stored one of the chairs in the facility _ .”

Tony didn’t need to ask what chair JARVIS was referring to.  Only one thing could make Yasha react more like the Winter Soldier than he’d seen in a long while.

“Yasha, buddy, you can’t go like this.  Plus, I’m guessing this base is in Europe again, right, J?”  Tony paused long enough for the AI to reply in the affirmative.  “Even we can’t get there before the Avengers do.”

“I know that,” Yasha growled, still pacing angrily.  “But the chair needs to be destroyed, and if the Avengers find out they’re in a Hydra base, they will be killed before they can turn around.”

Tony sighed.

“It’s taking too long to take them down.  This is our fault.  My fault.  But I’m going to fix this.  I just need to call in a favor.”

Yasha looked at him like he’d grown another head.

“What exactly are you planning?”  He asked.

\---

_ I’M CALLING IN A FAVOR _ , Tony said, hacking the Avengers’ comms again without a second thought.

Then he watched as Natasha realized she had been the only person to receive the signal.

She walked a short distance away from the others, out of hearing range of any Avengers or possibly-Hydra SHIELD agents with them.

“I don’t owe you any favors,” she said quietly, glaring at the nearest camera as if she knew the hacker was watching.

_ YOU DO, AND YOU KNOW WHAT I’M REFERRING TO _ , Tony replied, and watched her eyes flicker in recognition.

“So it was you who wiped the Budapest footage,” she muttered, and Tony smirked.

_ GUILTY AS CHARGED _ , he replied.   _ OR I SUPPOSE THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN YOU AND ROBIN HOOD OVER THERE, IF I HAD DONE NOTHING _ .

Natasha’s glare intensified, and there was a long pause.

“What do you want me to do?”  She asked, finally.

Tony’s smirk slid off his face, and he leaned forward in his seat, even though only JARVIS was in the room to see him.

_ I’VE BEEN ASKED TO DO A FAVOR AS WELL.  DID YOU SEE THE STRANGE-LOOKING CHAIR IN THE BASEMENT OF THE BUILDING, PARTIALLY DISASSEMBLED, LOOKS A BIT LIKE SOMETHING FROM THE MATRIX?  I NEED YOU TO DESTROY IT, AND ALL THE DATA ON THE COMPUTERS THERE.  IT IS IMPORTANT THAT THE DATA DOES NOT GET BACK TO SHIELD _ .

“Why should I betray SHIELD for you?”  Natasha asked, still staring into the camera.

Behind her, Clint called for her to come join them, but she told him to wait another moment.

_ BECAUSE I’VE READ YOUR FILE, AND I DON’T THINK YOU WANT SHIELD TO GET ANYTHING RELATED TO THE RED ROOM. _

She paled slightly, eyes narrowing, but after a long pause, she nodded.

“You’re going to have to tell me how the Red Room is related to this place later,” she said, “and if I find out you’ve lied to me, you aren’t going to live much longer.”

Tony sighed.

_ I AM NOT LYING.  AFTER ALL, THE WINTER SOLDIER WAS ONE OF YOUR TEACHERS THERE, WAS HE NOT?  AND THE FAVOR I AM DOING IS FOR HIM. _

Natasha didn’t say another word to him, but destroyed the chair without being noticed by anyone except for the cameras, whose footage Tony was carefully wiping, and Tony watched as she uploaded one of SHIELD’s worst viruses into the database, effectively wiping the system.

Tony signed off with a sigh, and went to tell Yasha the good news.

\---

Roughly one week later, while Tony was busy plotting to separate the Avengers from SHIELD, Director Fury was forced to watch as his prized archer was brainwashed by an alien god and vanished with the Tesseract.

“Agent Hill,” he ordered the woman next to him, “get Agent Romanov on the phone.”

“She’s on a mission, Sir,” Agent Hill tactfully pointed out.

“Not anymore.  Tell her Barton’s been compromised, and that she needs to go to Calcutta to retrieve a doctor.”

“Yes Sir,” Agent Hill replied.

\---

Hundreds of miles away, JARVIS’s servers picked up the call to Natasha, and he alerted Tony and Yasha of what had happened to the Tesseract and of the director’s orders.

“Well, this is going to be interesting,” Tony said, and Yasha glared at him with even Dummy whirred in a disappointed manner.

“Oh don’t look at me like that.  But J, remind me to have  _ words _ with Fury about the Tesseract... and how we didn’t know he had it.  Now, get me my suit, we’ve got work to do, and it sounds like SHIELD still hasn’t learned not to send a  _ trained assassin _ after the elusive Doctor Banner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, Yasha is not going to like it when he realizes in about five minutes who Tony’s about to go and see...
> 
> Unless something awful happens, I plan on updating at least once over Thanksgiving week. (That’s next week, for those of you not in the US.) I’d love to promise more than one, but I’ll see what I can do, since most of my break plans include reviewing more than twelve hours’ worth of lectures in preparation for one of my finals that I need more review time for than the others.
> 
> Next time: Oh dear, our favorite villain is throwing his classic tantrum again, and clearly this calls for two more of our favorite friends to come a-calling…
> 
> EDIT: I almost forgot, I meant to make this one-question poll for you guys. Please take the time to answer, if you would! https://goo.gl/iY9dYy


	15. Gods and Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, I wonder whose plan of approach Tony stole? XP Bear with me, this chapter will have a few time jumps in it again, cause I really didn’t want to rewrite the entirety of what’s probably the most-often recounted MCU fight again verbatim...
> 
> And we finally meet Banner and Thor (briefly)! (And Loki, but he’s busy being a dick again, so...)
> 
> EDIT: Oh, and I made a Tumblr only for announcing updates/delays, and I'll do my best to remember to update it! If you want to follow it, it's withasideofangst on Tumblr. (What a shocker... XP)

Tony beat Agent Romanov to India, his suit affording him a few hours’ head start.

That left him with enough time to bribe a local into giving him the current location of the doctor, who was acting as a medical doctor instead of a scientist to the poorest of the locals, who didn’t have access to a free alternative.

With Yasha still grumbling in his ear about how unsafe his plan was, Tony proceeded to enlist the help of another local, a small street-rat, to lure Doctor Banner away from the rest of the population and then scamper.

Instead of a sick patient, Doctor Banner found the Iron Man suit waiting for him, lounging as comfortably as a metal suit could on the dirt floor of a hut, having to prop himself up with only his arm due to the hut’s construction being vastly unable to support even a portion of the suit’s weight.

“You know trying to kill me isn’t going to end well for anyone,” Banner said, looking a bit resigned.

Tony snorted from inside the suit.

“If you know anything about who I am, you should know I’m not an assassin.  Nah, she’s on her way, but I beat her here.  And even  _ she _ hasn’t been sent to kill you.”

Banner frowned slightly, but otherwise just paced slightly, never quite turning his back on the suit.

“You’re... Iron Man.  I do manage to catch some news, even on the run,” he muttered.  “Aren’t you supposed to be a supervillain?  I have to tell you, I’m not interested if you’re trying to recruit me.”

Tony snorted, and slowly stood up, ineffectually trying to dust off his armor with metal gauntlets.

“Depends on who you ask, I suppose.  But no, I wanted to give you a heads-up that SHIELD is sending an ex-assassin to try and recruit you for Fury’s little superhero fan club.  Apparently he didn’t think that sending an assassin anywhere near your Mr. Hyde was a bad idea.”

“And what about you?  What do you get out of this?”  Banner asked, still frowning.

“Eh, let’s say this one is pro bono.  Although I know someone who’d love to talk to you after whatever fight Fury’s preparing for is over, and I figured you’d be more amenable if I warned you first.”  Tony replied, shrugging.

Banner snorted.

“If SHIELD knows where I am, I don’t think I’m going to be walking around free for long,” he said, “or not without destroying half of a city again first.”

Tony sighed, the sound coming out like static again.

“Okay, how about I promise to help you stay off of SHIELD’s radar permanently?  You know the Avengers haven’t been able to find me, and I have friends who are even better at hiding than I am.  I have no interest in you falling into SHIELD’s hands, either.”

Banner seemed to think about it.

“All that for talking to a friend of yours?  I won’t give them my blood or let them run any tests on... the Other Guy.”

Tony snorted.

“I have no interest in recreating Captain America.  One is enough, I don’t really want to imagine dealing with more.  My friend is just a huge fan of your work.  They’d be happy to build you a lab in the middle of nowhere, too, if you want to actually get back to work again, and no one will ever find you.”

Banner was cautious, that was sure, Tony noted, but he did seem interested.

“All this only works if I trust you and your friend,” Banner said, “and I notice you haven’t named him.  Or her.”

Tony nodded.

“I can give you one reason to trust me-- one thing no one else knows,” Tony said, Yasha silent on the comms now, knowing what they’d agreed he’d offer.

Tony unlatched his faceplate only partially, but enough to breathe in fresh air without being seen, and waited.

A moment later, Banner stiffened, and one of Tony’s theories was confirmed-- there  _ was _ some method of communication between Banner and the so-called Hulk, even when not transformed.

“You’re a  _ kid?! _ ” Banner exclaimed.

Tony snorted.

“I figured Mean and Green would be able to figure that out, but I don’t suppose you’d tell me how?  Smell?”  He asked, not really expecting an answer.  He suspected the man didn’t exactly know, himself.

Banner was still staring at him.

“Hello?”  Tony said, closing his mask again and snapping his fingers in the other man’s direction.  “Earth to Doctor Banner?”

“You... I...” Banner started, and then sighed.  “I don’t even want to imagine what’s making you do this,” he said, gesturing at the suit, “but I’ll admit, I didn’t expect that.  Thank you for trusting me.”

Tony snorted, as Banner continued thinking aloud.

“Not that I have anyone to tell, but why  _ would _ you tell me that?  Particularly since SHIELD is on their way.”

“Aside from one or two friends, you’re probably the only person I  _ know _ isn’t really an enemy,” Tony replied, “and you’re smart enough to be interesting, on top of that.  I figured getting you on my side couldn’t hurt, in the end.”

Banner frowned again.

“You know this doesn’t mean I’m on  _ your _ side-- I’m not even sure I know what side that is.”

Tony smiled, behind his mask.

“That doesn’t matter, trust me, you’re not on the wrong side.  Our mutual irritations are getting closer, though,” Tony said as JARVIS alerted him to the fact, “so you’d better get back to town.  I’d offer you a lift back, but...”

“That’s probably not a good idea,” Banner finished the through for him, and Tony nodded.

“Oh, and don’t tell Romanov that I was here,” he added.

The doctor was still looking at him oddly, but nodded and walked out, hurrying back towards town as fast as he could without breaking out of a walk.

“Well, that went about as well as it could have,” Tony said, and Yasha snorted.

“You have a death wish worse than I do.  Now get back here, JARVIS says Fury has one of those helicarriers.”

“Always stealing my toys,” Tony grumbled, but took off while keeping low, under the radar, and off SHIELD’s sensors.

\---

Even with the warning, Tony had to admit he hadn’t really been prepared for  _ aliens _ , but when JARVIS showed him footage of Captain America and Agent Romanov fighting the self-proclaimed alien god Loki in Germany, and then the appearance of Thor and subsequent imprisonment of Loki on the helicarrier, Tony couldn’t deny it.

“Anyone else have a bad feeling about all of this?”  Tony asked the room, and was treated to Yasha’s glare and JARVIS’s calm, “ _ yes, Sir, _ ” before everything went to hell on the other side of the helicarrier feeds.

The helicarrier crashed on the water without much grace, but no one seemed particularly injured.

Agent Barton had been “recalibrated,” but Doctor Banner was missing and Loki was gone with his scepter again, and no one at SHIELD was having a good day.

Tony sighed as his armor assembled around him, and Yasha strapped knives and guns to his person.

“Really, they can’t do anything without us, can they?”  He asked, just as JARVIS alerted him that Fury and Friends were trying to get ahold of the Mechanic again.

Activating the correct voice modulator, Tony took the call in his suit.

_ WELL, IF IT ISN’T MY FAVORITE PIRATE AND HIS MOTLEY CREW.  WHAT DO YOU NEED HELP WITH NOW? _

Nobody was surprised when he was asked (well, ordered, but Tony didn’t exactly listen to orders very well) to track Loki, who, as it turned out, seemed determined to carry out his invasion directly over the building he’d  _ just finished buying _ , and then to call in aerial support, in the form of Iron Man.

_ YOU KNOW, YOU’RE GOING TO OWE ME FOR THIS, NICK, _ Tony told the director of SHIELD, smirking inside his mask as he rocketed towards what used to be Stane Tower.

The muttered curses on the other end of the line just made his smirk wider.

\---

Tony had to admit, if the invading aliens weren’t casually wrecking his hometown-- and killing people, of course, that too-- Tony could have applauded the guy’s ambition, despite the none-too-well-thought out plan.  Tony knew he was capable of building world-ending weapons.  He’d nearly build several while still at Hydra, before he’d thought better of giving anything like that life, despite Pierce and the others encouragement and insistence to do otherwise.

In fact, if Yasha had been so inclined, he and Tony probably could have teamed up with the god of mischief and actually succeeded at world domination.

But he and Yasha were trying to be good, and Tony had to admit that he was mostly enjoying this, their latest attempt at saving the world, as he blasted another alien out of the sky.

Then there was a  _ gigantic _ flying alien, and Tony invaded the Avengers’ comms again.

“Heads up, I’m bringing the party to you _ , _ ” he warned them, and then he could see them, tiny and far below him, but the newly-arrived Doctor Banner was rapidly becoming bigger.

“I don’t see how that’s a party,” Agent Romanov replied, and Tony snorted.  Apparently the stiff agent did have a sense of humor, if rare.

At some point during the fight, however, the Avengers’ paths crossed with the Winter Soldier, and Captain Rogers immediately deviated from their plan in order to chase down the Soldier.

Tony cursed over the comms, and berated the captain.

“ _ He’s helping, you thick-headed fossil, leave him alone! _ ” He shouted, and the captain hesitated for a moment, which was long enough for Yasha to shoot down an alien over his shoulder and then jump over and off the top of a bus and catch one of the alien gliders passing overhead.

The Captain gaped for a moment, then re-entered the fight, evidently leaving the arguments for later.

Tony sighed, rolling his eyes, and went after the god himself, since Thor, as the only other air support, was busy holding the perimeter and trying to stop the still-incoming invaders.

A few moments later, he regretted not taking Yasha with him, as the god attacked him with magic-- and Tony decided he  _ really hated magic _ \-- and when that failed, Loki pried the helmet off of him.

The god’s eyes grew humorously wide when he saw the face underneath, and Tony would have smirked, if he weren’t too concerned about one of the others showing up.

“You’re just a  _ child _ ,” Loki exclaimed, and Tony rolled his eyes.

In his ear, Yasha cursed, while JARVIS repeated his countdown until a replacement suit would arrive.

“Yeah, and you’re acting like one,” Tony said, unable to keep his mouth shut.

At the god’s shocked expression, Tony snorts.

“What, you think all  _ this _ is anything except the world’s biggest tantrum?  What was your plan, exactly?  Even if you manage to win today, kill the Avengers and everyone else who opposes you, then what?  You think you’ll rule everyone else?”

“It is my  _ birthright _ ,” Loki nearly hissed, and Tony rolled his eyes, either forgetting or not caring that the god could see it now.

“Oh yeah, boo hoo, your life isn’t fair.  Welcome to the club, at least you weren’t raised by a bunch of secret nazis,” Tony said dryly.

Loki blinked, surprised, but then seemed to remind himself of his goals.

He stepped forward, grabbing Tony around his still-armored neck, and raised him off the ground.

“I am a god, you  _ mortal _ , and--”

Tony didn’t wait to hear the rest of his monologue, blasting him in the chest and propelling himself out the window as JARVIS’s countdown hit single digits.

The damaged suit detached itself from him as the new one formed around him, leaving just enough time to blast himself away from the ground before impact.

“You have a death wish,” Yasha grumbled over the comms, and Tony grinned, before finding the Hulk and directing him towards the Tower.

\---

“I can close it.  Can anybody copy?  I can shut the portal down.”  Agent Romanov’s voice crackled over the comms.

“Do it!”  Ordered the captain.

“Wait,” Fury said, breaking into their comms, and Tony’s eyebrows raised.  “Iron Man, I know you can hear me.”

_ “ _ I’m a little busy right now,” he said, as he dodged another alien on his tail.

“There’s a nuclear missile headed towards New York, and I can’t stop it,” the director said, and the Avengers made sounds of shock.  “The Avengers seem to think you’re not all bad.  It’s time to prove it.”

Tony cursed.

“Leaving all the hard work to everyone else, Patches?  Don’t worry, I know just where to put it.”

And Tony changed course, flying straight for where JARVIS now displayed the missile to be.

“Iron Man, you know that’s a one-way trip,” the captain said, but Tony ignored him.

“ _ Sir, shall I connect you to Yasha on a separate line? _ ”  JARVIS asked.

“Do it,” Tony said, after a moment.

“ _ Iron Man _ ,” Yasha nearly growled, and Tony winced.  He must be too close to the others to speak freely, Tony guessed.

“Hey, sorry, buddy.  Looks like I might not be able to keep that promise.  At least you’ve got the Avengers now, I’m pretty sure they’ll listen to you after this.”

“Just fly it through and turn around,” Yasha ordered.

Tony smiled grimly.

“Sure thing.  See you in a minute,” he said, and then he was through the portal.

The last thing he heard through the comms was the distant cheers of the people on the helicarrier, as he released the missile and passed out.

\---

Yasha stood still, not far from the Avengers but out of their sight, when Tony flew through the portal.

It seemed the Avengers were waiting, just as he was, to see if it worked, and when the blurry colors of an explosion were visible through the wormhole and all the aliens collapsed, he could hear SHIELD celebrating over the comms he was still patched into.

But he and the Avengers didn’t move, watching the still-empty sky.

“Come on, Tony,” Yasha mumbled, but after a long moment, he heard Steve order Agent Romanov to close the portal.

“Wait,” he growled, switching to their comms, but it was too late.  The portal flickered and began to close while the Avengers demanded to know who else was on their comms.

Then, just as the portal was disappearing, he saw the suit fall through, but loosely and without direction, and he began to run.

It took another moment for the Avengers to realize what was wrong.

“He’s not slowing down,” Yasha heard the thunder god say as he ran past, and then he heard Steve’s exclamation when the Winter Soldier ran by.

He reached the ground where Tony would crash and began running up the side of a building to intercept him in mid-air, with the help of the mini-repulsors in his arm and gear, when the Hulk beat him to it.

Yasha stopped his ascent and landed quickly near where they’d crashed, but was prevented from approaching by the Hulk, roaring in his face.

Yasha glared right back, eyes narrowing.

He knew the monster had figured out Tony’s age, but neither of them had expected him to become  _ attached _ .

“He’s my friend,” Yasha growled, walking past the Hulk as if he weren’t there, and surprisingly, he wasn’t stopped.

The Avengers arrived soon thereafter, but when Thor went to remove Tony’s faceplate, Yasha blocked him.

“He needs aid,” Thor said, but Yasha didn’t move.

“The light in his chest is out.  That means he’s dead,” Yasha said bluntly, “but that doesn’t mean he would want you to know who he was.”

The others were all glaring at him too, but he stayed between them and the suit.

“Nic, can you call for help?”

Yasha was startled when he heard Agent Barton speak into the comms.

When there was no reply, the agent’s eyes flickered knowingly towards the suit and then back to Yasha, and he grimaced behind his own mask.

Then, behind him, the Hulk roared, and Tony jerked upwards.

“Rrragh,” he groaned, then slumped back to the ground.

“Yash--” he began, then cut himself off, coughing, before seeming to realize who was standing around him.

“What the hell did I miss?”  He groaned.  “Soldier?”

Yasha’s shoulders slumped slightly, relaxing a fraction, and the Avengers laughed, the tension released.

Mostly.

They still watched him carefully as he helped Tony to his feet, then took a step back.

Surprisingly, it bothered him far less than he’d expected to leave the Hulk mostly at his back.

“We’re not done yet,” he reminded them, and heard the static-like sound over the comms that meant Tony had just sighed.

He chose to ignore Agent Barton’s simultaneous mumble of “ _ we? _ ” that he suspected he wasn’t supposed to hear.

Yasha stood by Tony as they went to capture the trickster god, and he didn’t leave until Tony flew off, carrying him, in time to avoid Fury’s arrival.

\---

There was a lot of cleanup to do, in the aftermath, and Tony was none too pleased at his recently-acquired building now needing massive repairs.

Once he was certain the building couldn’t be traced back to him, however, it did make it easier to overhaul the design before making his offer.

“You’re  _ what?! _ ”  Agent Barton exclaimed, when he hacked into their systems again.

_ I’M OFFERING YOU A BUILDING.  IT’S REALLY NOT A BIG DEAL _ , Tony repeated, knowing the answer would rile up the archer even more.

“It really kind of  _ is _ ,” Barton replied, sure enough, and Tony’s smirk grew wider.

“Why would you do that?”  Captain Rogers asked, even as Tony heard Barton exclaim to Agent Romanov, “ _ Wait, he can buy a building? _ ”

_ IT WOULD BE MORE CONVENIENT TO SPY ON YOU FROM _ , Tony replied, ignoring how Yasha smacked himself in the forehead.

“You mean it would be more convenient to respond to alien attacks,” Agent Romanov translated.

Tony ignored her.

_ NEW YORK CITY ALWAYS SEEMS TO BE A TARGET, AND DEAR OLD CAP CARRIES ONE OF THOSE AROUND ON HIS BACK ALL DAY.  MIGHT AS RATHER PUT YOU ALL IN THE SAME SPOT. _

Tony watched the others rolling their eyes through the cameras.

He bantered (read: harassed) them for a while longer before they departed, still considering the offer, they said, but Tony knew they’d accept it.

He was yanked out of his thoughts, though, when Agent Barton came back in the room and stared one of the cameras straight in the lens.

“Thanks,  _ Iron Man _ ,” he muttered, too low for anyone to hear except the microphones Tony was listening through, and then he left, too.

Tony blinked, and met Yasha’s gaze, who didn’t blink.

“Well, damn,” Tony muttered, and cut the connection.

Then he got to work on separating the Avengers from SHIELD, officially, and erasing any digital trace of Banner or the Hulk from existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m still not 100% happy with this chapter, but if I edited it until I was, you’d never get updates in any sort of regular fashion, so I hope you all like it anyway!
> 
> EDIT: Oh, and check out the first of the bonus chapters I just added to this series, if you'd like!
> 
> Next Chapter:  
> What, Tony is in trouble again? Noooo, that would never happen...
> 
> AKA, another time jump, and maybe Tony is hot-headed in more ways than one.


	16. Not a Damsel, Possibly in Distress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear, maybe not all villains are as stupid as Tony would like to believe...
> 
> AKA, Tony’s in trouble, not everyone is stupid, and the Winter Soldier is Not Pleased (TM).
> 
> (FYI, this is only a small time jump forward-- Tony is still fourteen, more or less.)
> 
> (Oh, and this update is coming a couple days early cause I'll be busy this weekend. Enjoy!)

Tony woke slowly.

That in and of itself was unusual, since he and Yasha both had the habit of jumping from unconsciousness straight into sharp awareness.

_ Drugged _ , he thought, as his brain began to kick online,  _ and tied to a nearly-vertical table, of sorts _ .  He tried to remember who had drugged him, but his memories were a blank.

Anxiety rising, he cast his thoughts further back, and found that the last thing he remembered was calling Banner, as the hacker, and reporting Tony’s progress on erasing his digital footprint.  He’d then gone to visit Pepper and had signed the last of the paperwork, officially dissolving Stane Industries.  He’d also told Pepper to look into hiring James Rhodes, after explaining how they’d met, but neither of them had been sure in what capacity, since Arc Industries primarily was focused on consumer electronics, and so had no use for a military contractor.  She had said she’d look into different options, and then he’d left.

He’d planned to return home and investigate the last of Stane’s network of contacts, adding any corrupt ones to Yasha’s list of targets to have arrested or kill, but then... his memories were fuzzy.

There could have been someone at AI when he went to visit Pepper, but he wasn’t sure.  It was the most likely place for someone to kidnap him, he reasoned, since he rarely went outside except as Iron Man, but then why would anyone kidnap a random teenager exiting AI?

His brainstorming was cut off when a man entered the room.  He wore a light grey suit and a false smile, and Tony found himself comparing him to Justin Hammer immediately.

“Well, I guess the rumors are true,” he said, and Tony snorted.

Apparently he was going for “enigmatic villain.”

“What rumors?”  He asked, deciding to play along until either Yasha showed up or he could escape.

“You do look like your father.”

Tony had been nearly smiling in an annoyed fashion, but instantly his face shut down.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, not expecting the man to believe him.

“I never met Howard Stark, of course,” the man said, walking around the room in a circle until he was behind Tony.

Tony couldn’t turn his head enough to keep him in sight, so he didn’t bother trying, knowing the man was trying to worry or intimidate him.

“But when a little bird told me his son was alive, I knew I had to meet you,” the man continued.

A chill ran down Tony’s spine, as if someone had cracked a very cold egg against the back of his neck.

“Who the hell are you?  And what moron told you I’m this... Stark kid?”  He demanded, doing an enviable job of masking his fear with annoyance and arrogance.

When the man circled to his front again, Tony began to work a wire out of a seam in the back of his jeans.

Sometimes it paid to have an ex-assassin as a best friend.

“Oh, how rude of me,” the man said, smiling.  “My name is Aldrich Killian.  I was going to work with Mr. Stane on a little... project of mine, but you effectively put an end to that when you dissolved the company, now, didn’t you?”

Tony swallowed, and the man-- Killian-- noticed, his smile growing wider.  At the same time, however, he felt relief that Killian didn’t seem to know he was Iron Man.  He was far more likely to be underestimated, in that case, identity found out or not.

“You didn’t answer why you think I have anything to do with this Stark guy.  Or destroying any companies,” Tony replied, buying time to work out the rest of the wire.

Besides, if being a sort-of villain had taught him anything, it was that other villains loved monologuing, to the point of stupidity.  If you could get them going, you could usually sabotage their entire plan by the time they stopped talking.

This one didn’t seem likely to disappoint.

“My almost-business partner worked with a group I believe you’re familiar with,” Killian answered.  “When SI dissolved nearly overnight, they came forward with a theory of who was behind it.  When I saw you, that was all the confirmation I needed to know they were right.”

“ _ Who _ was right?”  Tony demanded between gritted teeth.

Killian didn’t answer immediately, encroaching on Tony’s personal space until he was breathing in Tony’s ear.

“What is it they seem so fond of saying?”  Killian asked rhetorically.  “Ah, yes.”

It took a fair amount of his self-control to not headbutt the man, and repulsion made Tony nearly cringe.

“Hail Hydra,” Killian whispered, before stepping back.

The color drained from Tony’s face just as he worked the wire fully free.  His surprise nearly caused him to fumble the wire, but he gripped it tight again just in time.

Killian seemed pleased by his reaction, and he walked over to the door he’d come in.

Tony thought he was going to leave, but instead, Killian let someone else in.  A woman.

“Tony Stark, meet Doctor Maya Hansen,” Killian introduced them.  “You’ll be working together.”

Tony snorted.

“That’s unlikely.  If those bastards told you anything about me, they should have told you that I work alone.”

“I won’t be working  _ with _ you,” Hansen said, stepping slightly closer, “since my part of this project is already complete.”

“Then what do you need me for?”  Tony asked, watching warily when the doctor set a case down on a steel table nearby and opened it.  She took out a syringe, and some of Tony’s bravado vanished.

“I’m a biologist,” Hansen explained.  “The problem now is in the programming.”

Then she calmly stepped forward and injected something into his arm.

Tony jerked away, uselessly, and starting at the injection site, he began to feel pain shooting down his arm like fire.

“ _ What the hell did you do to me? _ ”  He shouted, losing his grip on the wire as his arm seized with another dose of pain.

“Let me show you,” Killian said, pulling out a tablet and beginning to load a video, one that looked like it had been created using surveillance camera images in a lab.  “This is our project, Extremis.”

He hit play, smiling from ear to ear, while Tony began to scream.

\---

Yasha realized Tony was missing less than three hours after he was kidnapped, when he returned to the workshop and Tony wasn’t there, and JARVIS couldn’t find him.

When JARVIS continued to be unable to find him for several hours, Yasha reluctantly realized he needed help.

He went to Pepper Potts first, because she knew at least a little about who Tony really was, and he’d heard a lot about her from the young genius.

She certainly was not expecting a strange man to suddenly enter her office, without having even appeared on any surveillance camera in the halls of Arc Industries, looking vaguely homeless and less-vaguely murderous, dressed in a baseball cap, jacket, black pants, and wearing a glove over his metal hand.

“Who are you,”  she demanded, immediately reaching for a phone to call security, “and how did you get in here?”

He’d already told JARVIS to block any calls for an hour, so he didn’t move to stop her.

“Tony is in trouble,” he said instead, and watched the woman freeze.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” she said, unconvincingly, and Yasha just stared at her flatly.

“I’m... his friend.” Yasha said, slowly.  “He went missing after he left here.  Did you see anything?”

Pepper blinked, then slowly shook her head.

“That kid has an odd taste in  _ friends _ ,” she muttered.  Then, more loudly, she replied.  “No, he left without saying anything, and I’ve been in here since then.”

Yasha nodded once, able to tell she was telling the truth, and left while she was demanding he explain what was going on, only pausing to tell her that he’d tell Tony to visit her again when he got the genius back.

His next stop was going to go considerably less well, he thought, sneaking back out of the building.  He only deviated to return to the workshop and change into his Winter Soldier gear before strapping a small armory to himself, piling another one into a bag along with some of Tony’s more... _ experimental _ weapons that he’d be thinking of passing to the Avengers, and he cleared out.

“JARVIS,” Yasha said grimly, “use the voice modulator for the Mechanic to call the Avengers.  Have them meet me on top of Avengers Tower, and clear out the construction workers.”

“ _ I shall do so at once, _ ” JARVIS replied.

Twenty minutes later, Yasha watched, hidden, as the Avengers arrived on the roof of the tower.

He waited another five minutes in case there was a trap, and then--

“There’s nothing here, what the hell is going on?”  Barton asked, and the others could only shrug.  “Don’t tell me our hacker is starting to give us prank calls?  Cause that’s not cool, bro.”

“He didn’t,” Yasha said, not reacting when the archer flinched and whirled around, the other Avengers following suit.

“What the hell do  _ you _ want?”  Barton demanded, and Yasha just fixed his gaze on the spy.

“You may have helped earlier, but if you’re targeting anyone now, we’ll stop you,” Steve warned, and Yasha thought his flash of annoyance might have shown on his face before he wiped it off again.

“Iron Man has been kidnapped,” he said instead, and even Romanov reacted in surprise.

“What do you mean?”  Banner asked, and Yasha’s eyes flicked to him.  He knew about the Hulk, of course, and his instincts told him to stay far away from anything as indestructible as he was, but Tony trusted him, and even liked him a bit, for his intelligence.

“He went missing,” Yasha repeated, and caught Barton’s muttered, “ _ so it  _ is _ a guy under the suit _ ,” but elected to ignore it.

He hesitated before continuing.

“He was out of the suit at the time.”

Yasha hadn’t been trying, but he’d been regaining a few memories from his past with Captain America, and those memories now enabled him to recognize the thoughts flickering over his cowled face.  It was clear that Steve was worried, but at the same time he wanted to see who was under the mask.

Yasha was equally sure that wasn’t going to be allowed to happen.

“What do you want us to do?”  Romanov finally asked.  “You want us to rescue him?”

Yasha shook his head.

“I just need to find him.  I can handle it after that.”

“Like hell, man!”  Barton exclaimed, earning himself another glare, which he ignored.  “He’s our friend too.”

Aside from Banner, the others frowned slightly at Barton’s comment, but didn’t verbally object.  Yasha let the comment slide, even though he wasn’t sure they were really able to claim that yet.

“We owe him,” Steve said, in the silence that fell for a moment.

“You do,” Yasha confirmed, “so stay behind.  He wouldn’t appreciate you seeing his face.”

He left while the others were still trying to argue, but when he caught Romanov and Banner’s eyes, he saw they understood.

In the end, it was one of the little spider’s contacts who figured out who had Tony-- a group calling themselves Advanced Idea Mechanics-- and Yasha was on his way before she had even hung up the phone, due to JARVIS’s continued monitoring of their communications.

\---

Tony woke up again to find Killian still in the room, once again looking even less pleased than the  _ last _ time he woke.

“I’m still not going to help you fix it,” Tony managed to say, even though he still felt like he was on fire, and every time they woke him, he felt more like he was going to explode.

“Then you’ll die, and you still won’t be my problem,” Killian said, and if he minded that his project would remain unfinished, then he was doing a good job of hiding it.

Still, Tony reasoned, since he wasn’t actually being killed, and Killian had already revealed that he’d injected himself as well, it was unlikely that they really wanted him dead.

He just needed to keep biding time until--

An explosion shook the building, and Tony smirked through his pain.

“I think I’ll go with option three,” he said, and this time, Killian’s rage distracted him enough for Tony to melt his hands free before they could knock him out or hurt him again.

With what  _ definitely _ sounded like one of the Winter Soldier’s less subtle sieges underway, Killian wasn’t stupid enough to hang around, and Tony took a position behind a stone wall, out of sight of the door, in case someone else was with Yasha, not that anyone else would care enough to--

The door caved inward under the force of someone’s fist, and then it was knocked off its hinges entirely.  Tony only heard one set of footsteps, and felt relieved.

(If that wasn’t the only thing in his chest, he told himself he was imagining the rest, and pushed it away.)

“Yasha,” he said quietly, knowing better than to pop out from his cover, and he heard his friend pause and inhale.

Deeming it safe, Tony stuck his head out, and saw that Yasha had pulled off his goggles and was staring at him with widened eyes.

“Yeah, I know, I was hot before, but this is a bit too literal,” Tony joked, aware that the vein-like patterns of fire were still visible on his skin, and probably his face, not that he could see it.  Sometimes Killian’s eyes had glowed orange or red, too, and he wondered if his were, too.

“Explain later,” Yasha said, snapping out of his shock and instantly shifting back into a tactical mindset.  “The Avengers wouldn’t stay behind.”

Tony flinched slightly when there were quieter sounds of fighting in the distance again.

“We better leave, then,” he agreed.  “Did you bring my--”

Yasha gave him a flat look, that clearly communicated “ _ of course I brought you your armor, idiot, what the hell do you take me for? _ ”  He didn’t seem to be carrying it with him, though, so Tony frowned for a moment before realization struck.

He glanced at the high windows in the room as a whooshing noise grew louder, and then his armor crashed through the glass and stopped near him.

“ _ It is good to see you again, Sir, _ ” JARVIS spoke through the suit’s speakers, and Tony grinned.

“Good to see you too, J.  Now let’s grab the bastard who kidnapped me and get out of here.  I’m sure the Avengers can clean up the rest of them.”

As they left the room, however, JARVIS reported that Killian had evidently run afoul of their more law-abiding acquaintances, and they followed his directions to find Killian out cold, next to a tied-up Doctor Hansen, along with several more of their goons, all being watched by the Avengers.

In the corner, the Hulk was still breathing fast, growling with a smile on his face every time one of the henchmen moved.

Underneath his mask, Tony’s eyebrows raised.

“Looks like someone didn’t save any fun for me,” he remarked, and the Avengers whirled around to face him.

“Iron Man!”  The captain called out, sounding surprised but pleased, and Tony was a blinked but didn’t question it.  “You’re okay.”

“Right as rain,” he replied, even though Yasha’s head shifted towards him a fraction, and Tony knew he was being given the stink eye.

“Or I will be,” he appended guiltily, and he received a relieved nod from Captain America.

“Who are these guys, anyway?”  Barton asked, poking one man none too lightly with the tip of his bow.

“AIM,” Tony replied, having heard Killian’s pitch excessively over the last several hours.  “Or Advanced Idea Mechanics.  That’s the boss,” he added, pointing to Killian, “and the woman next to him is Maya Hansen.”

As he spoke, he noticed how the Hulk was looking at him, sort of squinting as if trying to figure something out, and Tony wondered if he could somehow tell that he’d been injected with Extremis.  To his relief, however, the green giant didn’t say anything-- not that he was much of a talker anyway, but Tony worried Banner might know too, as a result.

“What did they want you for?”  Agent Romanov asked.

Tony sighed, thinking quickly.  He certainly didn’t want to tell them everything, but there was no doubt they’d seen the effects of Extremis, judging by the scorch marks around the room.

“You saw some of them go all...” Tony paused, wondering how to describe it.

“Volcano-y?”  Barton pitched in.

Tony rolled his eyes, but nodded.

“Yeah, sure.  Hansen developed it, but it didn’t work completely.  I suppose word got around that I know your hacker, and they decided to ask the villain for help instead of one of you,” he lied expertly.

“You’re not a villain,” Captain Rogers said, surprising Tony.  “They picked the wrong person to ask.”

Tony blinked, and he noticed Yasha shifting slightly in surprise by his side, too.

Speaking of which, considering the Avengers weren’t attacking Yasha right now either, it seems like he wasn’t the only one who was losing some of his villain reputation.

“Er... Thanks,” Tony replied, unsure of how to reply.  “...Anyway, if you want to take them in, I’ll catch Nic up on the situation and see if he doesn’t know someone who can stop them from exploding.”

The captain nodded, seeming pleased that he wasn’t fighting them on who was getting custody of the lava-skinned villain.

Tony didn’t miss Barton watching him carefully, however, but the archer didn’t appear to have told the others about his realization.

Just as he turned to grab Yasha and fly them both out, however, the Hulk shuffled over, only failing a little at not knocking anything over in order to do so.

Having not interacted with the guy except while fighting, Tony wasn’t exactly sure how to act.

“Hey, Big Guy.  You need something?”  He asked.

“Tin Man hurt,” was his grunted reply, and he felt the Avengers’ focus return to him.

Tony swallowed nervously.

“I’ll be fine.  It looks like things are okay around here, so you want to let the doc back out?”  He suggested carefully, trying to prevent any more epiphanies going around.

The Hulk only grunted in reply, but soon he was becoming decidedly less green, to the surprise of everyone in the room.

“Wow, when did you become the Hulk whisperer?”  Barton asked, his eyes round.

Tony shrugged awkwardly in the suit, wincing when his still-too-hot shoulder pressed against the metal, melting it a tiny bit.  He was starting to feel like a baking potato.

“I’ll catch up later,” he said, and took off with Yasha before anyone else could stop him.

\---

Yasha tried to get him to sleep when they got back to the workshop, and Tony peeled himself out of the armor-- literally, giving Yasha a shock, as the suit was shifted like slightly-melted cardboard-- but after Tony woke up screaming, nearly hitting Dummy with flames bursting from his chest, where the arc reactor had now fused with the rest of his body, Yasha relented.

Tony locked the bots out of the workshop for two days while he worked non-stop on the fix for Extremis, letting them demolish his penthouse apartment in order to keep them out of harm’s way.

Yasha brought him food, and pitchers of water to drink, but otherwise let him work, just observing quietly until he finished.

He did so with a shouted “ah  _ hah! _ ” and spun around.  Finally, the orange marks were gone from his skin, and he could see Yasha’s shoulders lose most of their tension.

“You aren’t going to burst into flame anymore?”  His friend asked quietly, and Tony shook his head, grinning.

“While being a human flamethrower would be cool, there wasn’t a good way to stabilize Extremis and keep that side effect,” he explained.  “I managed to keep the accelerating healing, though, which is pretty great, although not as good as yours or Cap’s anymore, so no more regrowing limbs.”

When Yasha’s face twisted, Tony rewound his mouth and realized what he’d said.

“Er...”

“What do you mean,  _ regrowing limbs? _ ”  Yasha growled, and Tony’s eyes flickered away, darting around the room.

“Uh, I didn’t say that.  You must have misheard me,” he evaded.

“Where did they lock up Killian?”  Yasha demanded.  “I’m going to cut off a few of  _ his _ limbs and see if they grow back...”

“Easy, Soldier,” Tony tried to calm him.  “He won’t be regrowing anything anymore, I made another version which shuts everything off, too.  They’ll be normal people again, if still crazy bastards, after that.  I should get that to the Avengers soon, so they can stop their fire extinguisher duty rotations.”

Yasha growled again, but relented, still muttering something about evisceration under his breath.

Tony rolled his eyes when his friend’s back was turned, then remembered the third version of Extremis he’d modified, and hesitated.

“Ah, Yasha,” he began, more cautiously, and the ex-assassin turned around again, meeting his eyes.

“You know... If you wanted-- that is, I’m not trying to force you-- I mean--”  Tony stumbled over his words, and Yasha’s face lost some of its murderous edge when he raised a hand up.

“Full sentences, Tony,” Yasha said.

Tony inhaled deeply.

“Right.  Um... If you want, I could give you Extremis... and you could regrow your arm.”

Yasha didn’t move, staring at Tony, but his face didn’t give away what he was thinking.

Even though Tony knew how to read the Soldier better than anyone else alive, at this point, he couldn’t even get a hint at what he was feeling.

“Are you mad?”  Tony asked, unable to keep silent for long, and starting to panic.  “Oh god, you’re mad, aren’t you.  I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it, ignore me, I haven’t sleep in-- wow, uh, a few days, you know me, I either have great ideas or horrible ideas around day three, I’m lucky you put up with me or else I’d probably not sleep for a week and accidentally destroy the world, I’m so sorry--”

“Tony.”

“--won’t bring it up again, I swear, I--”

“ _ Tony _ .”

Tony froze, finally shutting up, and Yasha let out a slow breath.

“I’m not mad,” he said, and Tony’s mouth gaped like a fish, but his eyes were still distraught and hopeful.

“You’re not?”

“No.  Thank you for offering,” he said, still speaking slowly, “but I have to refuse.”

Tony blinked several times, as if he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard him correctly.

“You... don’t want it?”  He repeated.

Yasha shook his head, less slowly now as he accepted his decision fully.

“No.”

Tony still looked lost.

“Why not?  I know you haven’t said anything, but I’ve seen how you look at him sometimes.  You’re starting to remember, aren’t you?”

Yasha looked annoyed for a moment, but the expression passed.

“Yes, but I still don’t want it back.”

Tony walked over to a couch on the side of the room near where Yasha stood, dropping onto it in a daze.

“I don’t understand.”

Yasha exhaled again, and sat next to him.

“I can’t protect you as well without the... without my metal arm,” he finally replied.

If Tony’s eyes started stinging, no one else was around to point it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I’m pretty sure my version of Killian is rather off (I’m afraid he comes off a bit like a Bond villain here, argh)... Call it creative license and him becoming a villain without Tony being able to abandon him on the roof?
> 
> (Also, I know Yasha’s not acting exactly like either Bucky or the typical WS, but I also don’t mean him to be. I try to put him somewhere in between, since he’s certainly not Bucky now, but neither is he a mindless automaton-- it’d be pretty difficult to be like that for long when you spent hours with a young Tony each time you were awake, instead of just Hydra operatives, don’t you think? Some of his attitude was bound to rub off... And I hope you enjoyed the Tony & Yasha feels there at the end! ^^)


	17. Unusual Alliances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. First there was my penultimate set of finals, and then my internet was out for more than two weeks, THEN I was gone for a week, and then I got back just to find out that the neighborhood cat had died, who was roughly 60/40 my neighbor’s and ours. So the time and desire to write was a bit scarce there, for a while, I’m really sorry again. I'm well aware this isn't my strongest chapter, but I tried to get this out as soon as I could, and thank you for sticking with me!
> 
> (Also I just couldn't come up with a good title for this chapter, argh... And also, whoa, I only have four more chapters to write, because some of the future ones have been written practically since I began this thing! O__o)

Tony called the Avengers as Nic, and told them to meet Iron Man and the Winter Soldier on the roof of Avengers Tower.

He noted with amusement that the name seemed to be catching on, as the Avengers were mostly moved into the nearly-empty building.

The heroes in question did not seem amused as they walked onto the roof, however.  Captain Rogers, Agent Barton, and Doctor Banner all seemed exceedingly tired, while Agent Romanov was hiding it better but JARVIS could still point out how her movements were more sluggish than normal.

“One delivery for you, via Iron Man Post,” Tony cracked, holding out a small case of his formula which would shut down all of Extremis’ powers.

Doctor Banner walked towards him fearlessly, eyeing the case with curiosity.

“It would take me weeks to synthesize a cure for... What is Doctor Hansen’s invention called?”  He asked.

“Extremis,” Tony answered honestly.

“Yes, Extremis,” Doctor Banner repeated.  “And you found a solution in two days?  You must know a biologist.”

Tony smirked inside the suit, opening his mouth to explain how the problem had really been with math and coding, not biology, but Yasha beat him to it.

“The Mechanic has many contacts, and several of them are geniuses,” Yasha lied, squashing Tony’s ego.

Doctor Banner blinked, shifting his gaze to the stoic Soldier, but nodded.

“They must be geniuses, to create this so quickly,” he murmured, glancing back at the Iron Man suit before walking back inside with the case.

“So,” Tony said, after an awkward silence fell for a moment.  “Why are you all looking like someone peed in your coffee?”

An odd little bit of side-eyeing then took place, leaving Tony and Yasha frowning in confusion until Agent Barton, apparently, was voted as the one to explain.

“Er, those two you left with us, Killian and Hansen?  Well, Killian escaped before we could interrogate him and it looks like he killed Doctor Hansen before he left.”

Tony just stared for a long moment, before turning to look at Yasha.  His friend was as stony-faced as ever, but Tony thought he seemed equally as resigned.

“Well, I guess that solves the issue of you actually managing to get my identity from either of them,” Tony said, his voice carefully bland and unconcerned.

He had known Hydra would never let SHIELD become aware of his identity, but he’d expected them to kill Killian for his failure, if he was entirely honest, not just Maya Hansen, expendable as she was since Extremis was as “completed” as it could be without his partial cure.

“Next time, I’m not leaving the supervillains with you lot, though, unless your security gets a lot better,” Tony added.

The three Avengers seemed taken aback by his nonchalance, but they recovered quickly.

“There’s going to be a next time?”  Captain Rogers asked.

Agent Romanov shot him a glance out of the corner of her eye.

“We will let you know when we find Killian again,” she said.  “Even Director Fury is embarrassed by his escape.”

Tony just shrugged in the suit.

They weren’t likely to run into Killian again if Hydra had anything to say about it.  His only regret was that Hydra  _ definitely _ now knew that their escaped genius and Iron Man were one and the same.

“He’s still a human volcano, you’ll probably just find pieces of him one of these days,” he replied.

In the pause that followed, he wondered if that was a tad too macabre for the Avengers.  Whoops.

“Anyway...” Tony started, but trailed off, not having prepared anything to say.  He really needed to work on his people skills, he noted to himself.

“You aren’t still hurt from your... captivity, are you?”  Captain Rogers asked, after another moment.

“Nah, I’m fine.  After all, what kid doesn’t want to be a human volcano when they grow up, right?”  Tony replied, smirking.  “Kidding, kidding!  Geez, tough crowd.  We’ve still got to work on your senses of humor, apparently.”

“They injected you with Extremis?”  Agent Romanov asked, staring hard enough at the suit that Tony began to worry she would develop x-ray vision from sheer force of will.

“Yeah, but I’m not going to explode, our mutual friend fixed me right up.  I guess you could say I was the guinea pig for the cure.  That’s how he knew it worked, after all,” Tony answered, brushing off the question, and noting that Doctor Banner appeared to have heard him, as he reappeared in the entryway to the roof, sans case.

Other than another long and careful look, however, the good doctor seemed to let the comment pass.

Again, Tony found himself wondering if the Hulk had smelled Extremis in him, and passed the knowledge to Banner.

“Was it the hacker who sent someone to break into my lab?”  Doctor Banner asked instead, glancing meaningfully at the Winter Soldier, and Tony frowned.

“What?  No.  Someone broke into your lab at SHIELD?”

The other Avengers looked surprised at the news too, and Tony realized Banner hadn’t told them.

“Yes, I found an apology note, with a knife stuck in it, on my desk yesterday.  The note listed some of my equipment that was ‘borrowed,’ and promised it would be replaced quickly.”  Doctor Banner looked between the suit and the Soldier again, head slightly tilted.

Tony slowly turned towards Yasha as he thought, forgetting the Avengers, who were busy questioning Doctor Banner, were even present.

Yasha didn’t visibly react to any of it.

“I wondered where that stuff came from,” Tony said quietly, cutting off the suit’s speakers and using their comm system instead, as he peered suspiciously at his friend.  “I remember I asked you to get a few things for the cure, but I didn’t meant for you to antagonize the Jolly Green Giant over there.”

Yasha just looked at him silently, before giving one very small, very deliberate shrug.

“That’s why I left the note,” he said simply.

Tony facepalmed, still in the suit.

“I think the knife undermined your cause a bit there, buddy.”

He turned back towards Doctor Banner.

“Sorry about that, I can’t seem to take him anywhere.  Anyway, I’ll make sure to replace everything-- in fact, I, ah-- I’ll be sure to have Nic just build you a new lab in the tower, since it will be ready by the end of the week anyway.”

Agent Romanov just raised one eyebrow pointedly.

“How long are you going to keep that up?”  She asked.

Tony blinked.

“Uh... What?”

Then he realized, and turned towards Agent Barton.

“Hey!  I actually thought you weren’t going to say anything!”

“I didn’t!”  Barton protested, scowling and crossing his arms.  “For one thing, it was just a theory, and for another, you’re our friend, aren’t you?  I was trying to show that you could trust me.  You can trust all of us!”

“What is going on here?”  The captain asked.

“Then how did she know?”  Tony demanded, ignoring him.

“I knew you were the hacker because it was obvious,” Agent Romanov pitched in, and Tony jerked his head to look at her, surprised.

“What?   _ How _ ?”  He demanded.

“Banner didn’t question the existence of the hacker, even though he supposedly only interacted with him after joining us.”  Tony glanced over at the doctor, who looked remorseful.  “When I met him initially, he didn’t seem that surprised either, so my guess is that you visited him first.  Don’t blame Banner, though.  He’s just not a good enough actor to fool me.”

“What?  No, I don’t blame the doc,” Tony replied, as he saw guilt already creeping onto Doctor Banner’s face.  “Apparently pretty much everyone had figured it out anyway, and I have it on good authority that my... Well, you could call them my arch-nemesis, I suppose, knows now too, so it’s not exactly a secret anymore.”

Tony shrugged, getting ready to tell Yasha they should just leave, when Barton grabbed the suit’s arm.

“Hold up, you have an arch-nemesis, and it isn’t us?  I’m offended,” the archer said.

Tony rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, even villains have enemies, bird-brain.  You guys are small potatoes compared to that bag of snakes.”

The Avengers exchanged concerned glances while Yasha jabbed the suit rather sharply in the side, as punishment for that jibe hinting too much at Hydra’s identity.

“You know you can ask us for help, right?  You’re really not a villain anymore, in our books,” Captain Rogers tried to reassure him, after a moment.  “Both of you,” he added, glancing at Yasha, who didn’t react.

Tony felt a dismissive retort rise in his throat, ready to be released, before he squashed it.

“Uh... Yeah.  I’ll keep that in mind,” he said instead, and the captain gave a sharp nod in reply.

All four of the Avengers present seemed pleased by his lack of protest.

“We’ll be going, then,” Tony said lamely, gesturing towards Yasha, wary of any more heartfelt moments appearing.

“We  _ will _ find Killian,” Captain Rogers said in assurance once more.  “I promise you that... Nic.”

Tony winced slightly.

“I don’t doubt it,” Tony lied.  “Just... keep calling me Iron Man, though.  I prefer it.”

“Nic isn’t your real name,” Agent Romanov tossed out, and Tony nodded even though he knew it was at least partly a guess.

“No, it’s not,” Tony confirmed, and then grabbed Yasha before they could be delayed any longer.

“JARVIS,” he said, once they were in the air, and far out of hearing range, “get me the footage of Killian’s escape.  And I want to know how he got out without you knowing.”

“ _ I’m sorry, Sir _ ,” JARVIS answered, “ _ it seems the cameras were disabled before Mr. Killian was released, under the guise of ‘routine maintenance,’ so the shortage did not trigger my warning protocols.  The agents assigned to guard his cell, however, were both members of Hydra, however, and both received only minor or moderate burns during the encounter. _ ”

“Well, that’s predictable.  Keep an eye out for cameras going out in the future, though, J,” Tony ordered.

“ _ Of course, Sir. _ ”  JARVIS replied.

\---

“Well, Mr. Killian, you’ve made a mess of this, haven’t you?”

Killian looked up at the SHIELD agent guarding his cell, and smiled smarmily.

“Hello again,  _ Agent _ .  Are you here to gloat, or to pass on a message?”

The man on the other side of the bars continued to smile, despite the rather orange cast to Killian’s eyes.

He hefted a fire extinguisher, raising an eyebrow slightly.

“I’ve been told to use this, if you try anything.  But yes, I have a message for you.  You screwed up, Killian.  We don’t tolerate failure.  You have one more chance to be useful, and if you screw up again, well... You won’t fail a third time.  Do you understand?”

The orange in Killian’s eyes faded, replaced by a more hidden sign of irritation along with a healthy dose of fear.

“I did find out one secret your  _ bosses _ don’t know yet,” Killian said, trying to surprise the agent.

The man didn’t reply, merely staring back at Killian, unmoving.

“That person they sent me after-- and you don’t even know his name, do you?  That’s out of your clearance level, isn’t it?”  Killian asked, unable to resist the opportunity to get the upper hand.  “Well, tell your bosses, that man didn’t just build Iron Man, he  _ is _ Iron Man.  That’s proof all this wasn’t a total loss.  It’s nothing more than a slight setback, really, once you get Maya and myself out of here.”

“That’s the other thing,” the agent said, carefully tucking Killian’s revelation away as something to review later.  “I’ve been ordered to release you, but there’s one thing you need to take care of before you leave.”

“One thing?”  Killian repeated, beginning to frown.

“Maya Hansen is now irrelevant.  She’s a loose end, and you know how  _ my bosses _ feel about loose ends.  Take care of her, and then you have your third chance.  Call it the price of nearly killing the man you were sent to kidnap.”

The agent passed the fire extinguisher to one of the two guards standing by the doors, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards in a smirk.

“Oh, and make your escape look real,” he ordered, and walked away.

Killian grinned, and began to glow.

“My pleasure,  _ Grant _ ,” he mocked.

\---

“You know, it’s funny,” Tony mused to himself, lounging around on a couch in the workshop, twirling a wrench idly in his hand.

Somewhere behind him, Dummy and the other bots had gotten ahold of a blender again, and he ignored the sounds of inedible objects being introduced to the blender.

“What’s funny?”  Barton’s voice replied through a speaker.

Tony startled, having forgotten he’d opened a comm line.

The archer sounded irritated, but Tony knew it wasn’t exactly with him.  After all, he’d been watching the Avengers struggle to assemble furniture on the tower’s camera feeds for hours, before getting lost in his thoughts.

He’d built them a tower, but because he was still a little bit mean, he’d included several still-boxed pieces of IKEA furniture which the heroes had to put together themselves.

(Except on Doctor Banner’s floor, because he wasn’t actually suicidal.)

Barton had been fighting with a desk for the past hour and a half, and he wasn’t winning.

“Iron Man?”  Barton prompted, after not receiving a reply.

“After Extremis, everything tastes a bit like coconut all the time, now,” Tony explained.

There was a pause, and Tony made a gesture for JARVIS to open a holoscreen in front of him.  Agent Barton was frowning at the ceiling-- a gesture all of the Avengers seemed to have adopted when talking to Iron Man through the tower’s feeds, JARVIS replacing the voice previously used when hacking with the suit’s usual distortions.

(Tony still sometimes played back the camera footage of the Avenger’s shocked reactions the first time he’d contacted them, when they’d just walked into the completed tower’s common floor.  He’d laughed until he couldn’t breathe, at the time.  Luckily, they really did seem to trust him, as they’d adapted rather quickly to his spying, particularly once they had realized he’d left their bedrooms and similarly private rooms alone.)

“Why would you be tasting coconut?”  Barton asked, confused.

Tony blinked, and reminded himself that they still didn’t know about the arc reactor, most likely only viewing it as the power source for his suit.

“Oh, no reason.  Just the serum, I guess,” Tony lied.

Barton stared at the ceiling suspiciously, but let the matter go.

“Well, that’s nice.  If you’re done with your internal reflections for the day, now, mind helping me figure out how to  _ put this damn dresser together _ ?”  He grumbled, waving the instructions around for the camera to see.

Unfortunately, this displaced several small screws which had previously been lying on the directions, and they rolled away in all directions.

“Aww, screws no,” he groaned, and set about hunting each screw down on his hands and knees while Tony laughed and cut the feed.

“Having fun?”  Yasha asked, entering the workshop.

“Yeah,” Tony replied, twisting to see his friend.  “I’m done with tests for the day so I’m just resting.”

When Yasha stopped moving and squinted at him, Tony knew he’d messed up somehow.

“What?”  He demanded.

“You never willingly rest,” Yasha replied, starting to walk closer again.  “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Tony protested.  “Why does everyone always think I did something wrong?”

“JARVIS?”  Yasha asked.

“Hey, wait--”

“ _ Sir built and set off a miniature electromagnetic pulse, _ ” JARVIS answered.  “ _ He stated that he wished to determine if the arc reactor was still immune since fusing with his body.  Luckily, the results were favourable _ .”

“Traitor,” Tony muttered, glaring at the nearest camera.

“You did  _ what _ ?!  I can’t leave you alone for five minutes!”  Yasha explained, his usual stoicism breaking into what Tony had dubbed his “ranting mode.”

His lectures seemed to be slowly increasing in number, and Tony guessed that his friend had been regaining more of his memories, if the few existing newsreels depicting the old Bucky Barnes and his friendship with Captain America were at all accurate.  Somehow, he had apparently taken the role of the scrawny Steve Rogers, but Yasha hadn’t seemed to have made the connection.

He hadn’t said anything, but continued to wait, wondering when his best friend would eventually leave him for his  _ old _ best friend.

\---

Time passed slowly, as Killian and Hydra seemed to have both melted back into the shadows, only punctuated briefly with occasional disturbances.

Such as Nick Fury’s reaction to Tony revealing that he’d legally separated the Avengers from SHIELD, although the two agents remained also on the agency’s rosters.

He’d shouted for days, and raged anytime someone mentioned the name “Iron Man” around him, to Tony’s amusement.

All of the Avengers seemed relieved, to Tony’s surprise, but each of them had apparently been somewhat disillusioned by SHIELD’s treatment of Iron Man.

He also began supplying the Avengers’ weapons full time, and put JARVIS in charge of the production of Barton’s arrows, preventing the archer from ever running out-- or even running low.

Tony used the downtime to finish up several projects, including the digital erasure of Doctor Banner’s records.

“It’s done,” he told the doctor, one night on the roof of the tower.  He’d asked Doctor Banner to walk out with him after delivering the latest batch of prototypes to the others, and refusing an offer to stay for what had become the team’s movie night.

“What is done?”  Doctor Banner asked.

“Doctor Bruce Banner no longer exists online.  Which I suppose means you’re no longer officially a doctor, but that’s just details.  Oh, while I was at it, I dug up some dirt on that General Ross who keeps looking for you.  He now has been made aware that if he so much as sneezes in your direction, he’ll be looking through bars for a long, long time.  And if they do ever manage to get their hands on you again anyway, I’ll find you, free you, and buy you a goddamn island.”

Tony spoke dismissively, brushing off the favor as something trivial, but once again, Doctor Banner approached him without hesitation, tapping on his armored arm.

“Thank you,” he said, and Tony could see relief stark in his eyes.  “I can’t begin to repay you for keeping Ross off my back, but if you ever need anything, both I and the Other Guy will do our best.”

“...Thanks, Doc,” Tony said, unsure of how to react.  Gratitude was still new to him.

“Call me Bruce,” Banner insisted, and slowly, Tony nodded.

“Bruce,” he repeated, and was just powering on his repulsors when he realized Banner--  _ Bruce _ had begun to frown.

“What’s wrong?”  He asked.

“I’m not sure why, but the Other Guy keeps... insisting you smell like coconut,” Bruce said hesitantly.

Tony was still laughing as he let himself fall off the roof, catching himself and flying back towards his workshop again.

After that, somehow the agents became “Clint” and “Natasha,” and Captain America became just “Steve,” which always made Tony squirm slightly when Yasha said it.  Both Tony and Yasha still remained masked, but Tony began to watch for the day when Yasha would ask to be called “Bucky,” too.

While he waited, he amused himself with both pranks and favors, programming the tower’s coffee machines to power on just before each Avenger woke up, and then swapping out the coffee with decaf whenever anyone managed to annoy him.

Despite the annoyances, the Avengers continued to invite Iron Man and the Winter Soldier both to their movie nights, and eventually, they gave in, Tony having to bring a reinforced chair that could withhold the weight of the suit while Yasha sat stiffly next to him, mostly resisting attempts at conversation.

The Avengers also didn’t seem to know exactly how to treat the Soldier, but were always polite at the very least to him, while they bantered with Iron Man as much as he did with them.

They even played board games sometimes, although they all swore off Settlers of Catan after Yasha somehow ended up with more than half the board, while the others, including Tony, were all solidly defeated, and no one quite knew how that had happened, including Yasha himself.

Eventually, they began to share stories.

Both Tony’s and Yasha’s were infrequent and highly edited, but each of them found that talking to people other than themselves was entertaining.

Natasha, Clint, and Yasha even managed to start comparing their most difficult assignments, each trying to one-up the others.

“What’s your death toll, anyway?”  Clint asked one evening, ignoring how Steve and Bruce now both seemed uncomfortable, and Natasha jabbed him in the side.

Yasha turned to meet Tony’s eyes (or rather, the suit’s glowing ones), and Tony smirked grimly inside his helmet.

“His isn’t the highest in this room,” Tony answered for him, and Clint’s eyes shot to the suit, followed by the other Avengers’.

“Hah, I knew it!”  Clint crowed, breaking the tension.  “But is he in second or third place, then?”

Tony just shook his head.

“I meant mine,” Tony revealed, and watched the others blanch.

“What do you mean?”  Steve asked, frowning.

“Not your fault,” Yasha muttered, and the Avengers’ eyes flickered to him and then back to Tony.

“Maybe not directly,” Tony allowed, “but I’ve caused more harm than anyone else in this room, Winter Soldier included.  I have a lot to make up for, and I wasn’t brainwashed into my mistakes.”

“Just raised and taught to do so,” Yasha countered, and the others’ eyes bounced between the pair like a tennis match.

“I’m a genius, I should have known,” Tony insisted, but whatever Yasha was going to say was cut off.

“Hey, none of us know the details here,” Clint interrupted, gesturing towards the other awkwardly-lingering Avengers, “but it doesn’t sound like you were to blame.  Am I right in assuming you started trying to do better as soon as you realized you were doing more harm than good?”

Tony didn’t reply, but Yasha nodded, pushing on the suit’s shoulder with his metal arm in order to shake him a bit.

“Then it sounds like you’re trying to make it right,” Clint continued.

“We all have red in our ledgers,” Natasha interjected.  “None of us here are innocent.”

Tony breathed out slowly, trying to believe them.

After a moment, Clint nodded, satisfied, and an alarm in the suit went off.

“What’s that sound?”  Steve asked, and Tony made a mental note to mute alerts next time he was anywhere near the supersoldier.

“We’ve got to go.  There’s a shipment we need to divert,” Tony replied honestly, and Yasha stood by his side, all levity gone.  Hydra ordering weapons was never a laughing matter.

There was an awkward pause for a moment, then Steve attempted a smile.

“Let us know if you need help,” he said, to Tony’s surprise.

“Don’t get injured because there are only two of you,” Natasha added.  “If you need backup you have it.”

Clint nodded, and even Bruce seemed to agree.

“The Other Guy would be happy to stomp on anything or anyone if you need it, and he doesn’t ask questions,” Bruce said, a rueful smile on his face.

“Hey, that’s no way to talk to a villain, don’t you remember?  Aren’t you all still supposed to be trying to stop me?”  Tony asked.

Natasha tilted her head and regarded him like one would a moron.

“We clearly haven’t been trying to do that at all, anymore,” she pointed out.  “Just don’t kill anyone we wouldn’t, and don’t get killed.”

“Yes ma’am,” Tony said glibly, shooting her a sarcastic salute, before grabbing Yasha and flying off once again.

Belatedly, he wondered when exactly he’d added four more friends to his count.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not really pleased with this chapter, but I figured it would be better to post something, finally.
> 
> So, you get a lot of snark and a few more hints dropped about Hydra, and Killian and Ward (yup, I borrowed Ward from AoS, but chances are I got him really wrong since I stopped watching the show ages ago, and I really just wanted a Hydra agent who wasn’t Rumlow for this one, as well as a few friendship-developing scenes that simply didn’t fit anywhere else but needed to occur.
> 
> (Also, yeah, I’ll admit it, letting Killian live was a plot hole on my part, seeing as he knew Iron Man’s identity, but I wrote this instead of going back and redoing the previous chapter. Hopefully you don’t mind too much, sorry!)
> 
> Also, in case anyone missed it, I added another story to this series, which is the first of several “bonus chapters” I’m going to write, which are either scenes that didn’t fit in the fic, and aren’t necessary, but I thought would be interesting to see, or are scenarios that didn’t fit into the plot but I really wanted to write. The only one currently up is an alternate first meeting for Pepper, Rhodey, and Tony, if they all met in college while Tony was still with Hydra and was sneaking into the back of lecture halls. There will be more!  
> Next Chapter: Tony and Yasha call in that offer for backup, and we revisit an old friend of Tony’s. (Well. I say “friend”...)


	18. Hammer of Vengeance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look what I did, because I actually had some more free time! It’s another chapter update! Call it repayment for making you wait so long for the last one.
> 
> (Long gaps like that are unlikely since of the remaining five chapters, two are already written and two more have their key scenes drafted in enough detail that they shouldn’t take long to finish. Plus I’m still going to keep writing as soon as I finish uploading this.)

Yasha was in the common floor of Avengers Tower, listening to Clint and the little spider discussing weapons, where to get the best coffee in town, and their latest small-time villains, when Clint’s channel-flipping paused on a news station.

Within seconds, Natasha and Yasha were both watching as well, until Yasha realized he recognized the location being shown.

Ignoring the presence of the two other assassins, Yasha quickly opened a comm link to JARVIS.

“Where is he?”  Yasha growled, as Clint and Natasha exchanged a concerned glance behind his back.

“ _ Sir is in the workshop.  It has been locked down for the past fourteen hours as he is finishing a project for Miss Potts.  What has happened? _ ”  JARVIS replied.

Sometimes Yasha forgot the AI was not omniscient.

“Look on the news channels,” Yasha replied, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait for long.  Seconds later, JARVIS’s voice returned.

“ _ Those are not Iron Man suits, _ ” he said, sounding slightly offended.  “ _ My initial scans suggest their structure most resembles the prototype suit Sir built while still being held captive, and may contain similar structural weak points, and possibly more. _ ”

“Good,” Yasha said.  “Make a list, and tell him to get in that tin can of his.”

Yasha paused, glancing back at the two determined-looking Avengers still lurking behind him.

“Tell him the Avengers will probably be joining us,” Yasha added, and the spies looked appeased.

\---

“ _ Someone stole my designs?! _ ”

“ _ Sir, if you shout any louder, pedestrians on the street above may hear you _ ,” JARVIS admonished.

“Don’t you start, Snarkbot,” Tony shot back, dropping his tools and rushing towards the closest operational suit.  “They’re practically on our front lawn!  If we had a front lawn.  Should we get a front lawn?  We’d have to hire someone to mow it, though, and--”

“ _ Sir, _ ” JARVIS interrupted, sounding pained.

“Right, right, later,” Tony said, the suit closing around him.

“I guess Hydra’s figured out that I’m behind Arc Industries, if they traced me here,” he sighed.  “Well, it was fun while it lasted.  Start preparing to move everything to our first backup location, I want to be out of here by tomorrow.”

“ _ You underestimate my efficiency, Sir, _ ” JARVIS replied, switching to their comm link as Tony began sneaking out of the building in a way that wouldn’t let anyone on the ground above realize Iron Man had just emerged from the building.  “ _ It will not take a full day. _ ”

“Sorry, J,” Tony replied, before focusing on the imposter suits flying a few blocks away.  “Now, what’s Yasha’s ETA?”

“ _ Five minutes, Sir, _ ” JARVIS replied, and Tony flew into one of the other suits with a metallic crunch.

\---

By the time Yasha arrived, the four Avengers on his tail, several of the suits were lying in slightly-smoking piles on the pavement, but many more hovered around him like a strange, man-shaped hive of bees.

Two suits, larger than the others, had landed in front of Tony’s suit, however, and one appeared to be speaking to him.

JARVIS transmitted the conversation to him, and to the Avengers on a slight delay, as he prepared to censor anything that could reveal Tony or Yasha’s identities.

“--prised I was to hear it was  _ you _ who created the Iron Man suit.  It’s your greatest creation!”  The speaker exclaimed, evidently mid-way through his “I have defeated you” monologue, his voice undistorted by the suit.

The second suit’s pilot continued the speech, also unmodified.

“You made the world’s greatest weapon, Nic,” the unfamiliar voice said, “and now I am going to kill you with it.  It’s a shame we couldn’t work together, you could have accomplished even greater things.”

Over the comms, Clint groaned.

“Please don’t tell me that’s who I think it is,” he said.

Even the other Avengers made confused noises in response.

“You know them?”  Steve asked.

“You don’t?  That’s Justin Hammer and Obadiah Stane!”  Clint replied.  “They supplied most of SHIELD’s weapons, and the army’s, before Stane Industries went out of business.  Please tell me they’re not Iron Man’s arch-enemy.”

Yasha resisted the urge to snort.

“They’re not,” he said instead, but started approaching more quickly, shifting his focus to what Tony was saying.

“Wow,” the genius replied, tilting his head and putting both armored hands on his hips.  “Hammer, I knew you were an idiot, but you didn’t even really tell Stane who I am?  No, wait, I know, you don’t even really  _ know _ , do you?  They didn’t even bother telling you, and probably forbid you to say anything you  _ do _ know, didn’t they?  How did my life turn into one giant ‘I’ll not tattle on you, you not tattle on me’ with my worst enemies?”

Tony shook his head, seeming utterly unconcerned with the swarm of knock-off Iron Man suits still flying nearby.  Yasha knew he had to be aware of his and the Avengers’ approach, but the teenager gave no sign of that either.

The man Yasha now recognized as Justin Hammer, however, looked extremely annoyed.

“I don’t take orders from anyone,” he insisted, and there was a static-like snort from Tony’s suit.

Stane, meanwhile, had angled slightly towards his partner.

“You know who he is?”  The older man demanded.

“He doesn’t know my name,” Tony replied instead, “but he wouldn’t be  _ allowed _ to tell you even if he did.  It’s ironic, really.”

“Stop taunting the villains,” Yasha grumbled to Tony, ignoring the questioning mutterings from the Avengers.

Tony elected to ignore that advice, however, up until the moment Stane tried to blast him with one of his enlarged repulsors.

Tony took off, both men following him, and the apparently-robotic other suits continued to swarm around them.

The Avengers immediately began penning the suits in, JARVIS passing on helpful tips using the Iron Man suit’s robotic voice after getting approval from Tony.

Yasha, meanwhile, used the small repulsors in his arm, and how attached to his boots as well, to gain enough altitude to pull suits down out of the sky and rip out and crush their reactors, imitating the Hulk.  Anytime a few seemed to get too close to Tony, he would latch onto one instead, and force it closer to him in order to shoot the threatening suits out of the sky, before destroying the one he was riding.

Finally, Tony’s unending verbal torment of the pair of villains resulted in the robotic suits being ordered all to attack the young genius, and for the first time Tony addressed the assisting Avengers.

“Hey, Clint?  Do you have one of those arrows I wouldn’t let you test?”  He asked, faking nonchalance rather badly as he banked into a severe dive to avoid the swarm.

“...Yes?” Clint replied after a moment.

“Well, I just unlocked the safety feature.  Shoot me,” Tony ordered.

Yasha cursed almost silently and began running towards the center of the swarm, using the repulsor in his metal arm to push himself to go even faster.

Somewhere behind him, Steve shouted a question at him, but he ignored it.

“ _ What? _ ”  Clint exclaimed.

“ _ Shoot me _ ,” Tony repeated, and Yasha knew the archer would be drawing back his bow despite his shock, considering how much the man had been trying to show Iron Man that the Avengers could work with him.

When the shot still didn’t come, Tony was forced to avoid a blast from one of the manned suits, close enough to singe the metal.

“ _ Now _ ,” Tony practically growled, a grating sound through the distortion, and Yasha cursed aloud.

“Do it,” he reinforced the order, and sprinted as fast as he could the rest of the way towards his friend.

Clint released the arrow, Tony angled away just enough to catch it instead, hovering just in front of Stane, whose hand was raised and pointed directly at him, Hammer approaching from behind.

“How did you fix the EMP problem?”  Tony asked, and the small device attached to the shaft detonated.

There was no physical force released, but immediately, the swarm of suits began to fall.

The two manned ones and Tony’s were among them.

“ _ Iron Man! _ ” Steve shouted, somewhere behind Yasha and to his right.

Yasha stopped when he was directly below Tony’s falling suit, ignoring the now-useless collections of metal crashing in piles around him, except when he had to blast one away with his repulsor when it came too close to falling on him.

He wasn’t sure he could catch the suit without it crushing him, but he was going to try--

Until it stopped shorting before hitting him, close enough that he felt a harmless blast of heat from the repulsors in his boots, as Hammer’s suit continued to fall, crashing just at Yasha’s feet.

“What?”  Tony asked, when Yasha stood, frozen, beneath him for a long moment.  When he received no answer, including from the shocked Avengers, he titled his head.  “Wait, did you forget I fixed that problem, way back when he,” Tony paused and pointed a thumb towards where Clint and stopped running towards them, “shot me ages ago, before I even got you back?”

Yasha reined in his disbelief and let out a long breath.

He had forgotten, in his fear over his friend’s recklessness.

“Really?”  Tony continued, surprise clear even through the distortion.  “You actually forgot?  Even after, er, J ratted me out for my experiments post-Extremis?”

Yasha sat heavily on the suit that still had Obadiah Stane inside it, ignoring the muffled cursings coming from inside.

The Avengers were slowly drawing up to where Tony landed and planted one foot on Hammer’s suit.

“That was a moronic stunt,” Natasha informed him sternly.

“I EMP-proofed my suit!”  Tony replied, throwing up his hands.  “I’m sorry you didn’t know that, but I didn’t think he was going to forget!”

Tony jerked his head back towards Yasha as he spoke, and Yasha just sighed again behind his mask.

“I’m too used to you pulling suicidal stunts when you fight,” he muttered under his breath.  “Besides, you were falling too.

“This idiot,” Tony said, giving Hammer’s suit a non-too-light kick, “managed to grab my suit before the power shorted out, and it locked afterwards.  It took me a moment to dislodge him.”

“Still, would you  _ stop falling out of the sky every time I turn around? _ ” Yasha insisted.

“Yeah, that’s my job!”  Clint interjected.

“Hey, half the time you’re falling with me,” Tony protested Yasha’s statement, but everyone was too relieved to really start a debate.

“What are we going to do with them?”  Steve asked, prodding Hammer’s suit with the edge of his shield, also ignoring the muffled curses coming from inside.

Tony snorted.

“If you bring them back to SHIELD, they’re not going to stay locked up,” Tony said truthfully.  “As for the unmanned ones...”

He paused, turning towards the Hulk, who was still lingering behind the other Avengers.

“Hulk, smash suits,” Tony ordered, and the Hulk grinned, proceeding to happily pulverize the suits which didn’t hold humans inside.

Gesturing for Yasha, who got up from his seat on Stane’s suit, to help, he began to use his knowledge of the suit’s original design to locate the physical weak points in the suits and begin prying the armor off of Hammer, Yasha doing the same to Stane.

When they were done, Stane and Hammer stood, rather battered and disgruntled, with Steve, Natasha and Clint each holding on to at least one arm of the pair.

Tony tossed their suits towards the Hulk, who was still serving as a metal-crunching lawnmower, and stared down the two much older men.

“I won’t forget this betrayal,” Hammer said, glaring at Tony, “after I taught you everything you know!”

Tony rolled his eyes, sighing.

“You really didn’t,” he replied.  “All you did was take credit for my designs.  Most of your so-called  _ weapons _ wouldn’t even work if it weren’t for me, and I’ll have to live with that shame.”

The Avengers looked concerned, but when Hammer lunged forward, trying to punch the Iron Man suit despite the futility of such an action, they tightened their grips on him and ignored Iron Man’s backstory, for the moment.

“What are we going to do with them, if SHIELD isn’t an option?”  Clint brought up again, eying Hammer with surprised distaste as the man continued to act more like a sulking teenager than the head of a weapons manufacturing company.

“Well, there’s always the actual government,” Tony said, not particularly anticipating that they would remain locked up for long there either, but at least they wouldn’t  _ directly _ be handing them right back to Hydra.

Yasha, behind his mask and goggles, looked just as skeptical, but didn’t protest since there weren’t any good alternatives.

The two SHIELD spies looked doubtful as well, but when the local police finally began to cautiously approach, Steve walked the pair over without argument from either of them.

“And when they break out?”  Natasha asked.

Tony shrugged.

“We’ll just catch them again,” Tony replied.  “And if we find wherever they’ve been ripping off my suits, we can delay them making any more for quite a while.”

“How did they even get the designs?”  Clint asked, as Steve returned without the prisoners, and Bruce began to slightly-stumble over, pale-skinned again and wrapped in a blanket.

Tony made a mental note to mass-produce Hulk-proof pants for the man by the end of the week.

“When I made the first Iron Man suit, I wasn’t in friendly territory,” Tony admitted.  “They must have worked off the initial designs, and figured out enough to make their own.”

“Well, that sucks,” Clint said, dropping one hand onto one of Tony’s armored shoulders.  “But at least that means you know the weaknesses they couldn’t fix.”

Tony just shook his head, but kept his guilt to himself.  He couldn’t erase any of the mistakes he’d made, but he would at least do his best to hunt down and destroy any copy of his designs that he could find.

The tension was broken again by Hammer, shouting threats of vengeance and protestations of his innocence as he was being taken away.

“Can we continue this back in the tower?”  Bruce asked, shivering slightly, and everyone agreed.

Yasha thumped the suit on the back once in consolation before Tony grabbed him to being the flight back to the tower, but neither spoke.

\---

When the Avengers had settled in their common floor on various couches, Tony sat in his reinforced chair while Yasha sat in an armchair beside him, between Tony and a couch with Steve and Bruce on it.

“Will you tell us what Hammer was talking about before?”  Steve asked, clearly trying to be gentle.  “You made weapons for him, as an employee?”

Tony blinked when Yasha made a small scoffing noise on his behalf.

“No,” he said, suppressing annoyance.  “He likes to think he  _ taught _ me, but he’s always just been an idiot.  I was... working for someone else, and I never questioned what they did with the things I designed.  Weapons, electronics, everything... And they kept some of my designs, and sold others through HammerTech or Stane Industries, or other companies.”

Tony paused, distracted, as he noticed that the phone Clint had been playing with from his perch on an armchair was one of Arc Industries’.

The corner of his mouth quirked up for a minute, before his gloomy mood returned.

“I was known most for my weapons,” Tony continued to narrate, “and I made a reputation for myself, one I have been trying to make up for ever since.”

Natasha was staring at him intensely, but he couldn’t read her expression.

“Have I heard of you before?”  She asked, and Tony sighed, knowing she had probably guessed correctly.

“Probably,” he grudgingly admitted.  “The title they gave me was the Merchant of Death.”

Clint’s jaw dropped as Natasha nodded slowly, and while Steve and Bruce continued to look sympathetic, it was clear they didn’t know the title.

“Wow,” Clint said, sounding quietly impressed.  “You weren’t kidding about having red in your ledger too.”

He winced as Natasha elbowed him in the ribs.

“Sorry,” Clint muttered, but he sounded sincere.

“Thank you for trusting us,” Steve said, earnestly enough for Tony’s guilt over keeping Yasha’s old identity secret to flare up too.

With that, the discussion turned to innocent topics, and Tony eyed the Avengers as they interacted with Yasha, grateful they knew, mostly, when to stop pushing.

It was strange, having most people that he could probably trust.  He’d even considered actually telling them the full truth, before, at least about SHIELD.  It was just his paranoia that held him back, and the traitorous thoughts that he kept having, that once they knew how much he’d been hiding, they’d realize exactly how different he was, and that he wasn’t a hero.

When Tony forced his attention to return to the discussion happening around him, the subject had turned to the various friendly antics each of the Avengers got up to, alternately helping each other out or tormenting them.

Clint appealed to Yasha to finally see who was the better shot, since the Winter Soldier had quite the reputation as a sniper as well as a close-quarters fighter, and Tony rejoined the conversation with an offer to procure a foreign tea Bruce was describing to Steve, as they talked about their favorite things to cook or eat and drink.

At one point, Tony drew Yasha slightly aside.

“It’s strange,” he said.

Yasha just waited for him to finish the thought.

“Besides you, I’ve never really had friends I didn’t have to repair with a screwdriver and a keyboard at some point.”

Yasha snorted a laugh unexpectedly, loudly enough for the others to hear and turn to stare in surprise.

(“Did he just laugh?”  Clint whispered to Natasha, his face hovering somewhere between horror and glee.)

“You have repaired me with a screwdriver before,” Yasha replied, and inside the suit, Tony began to laugh.

The others let them alone for another moment, before smiling too, Tony’s good mood catching.

“You two have an unusual relationship,” Clint remarked, dropping into a seat next to them when they returned to their chairs.  “Someday you have to tell me how you met.”

“That one doesn’t have an easy answer,” Tony said, glancing towards Yasha, aware that the other was still more sensitive about their true first meeting, which neither remembered and only had read about in Hydra’s files.

Yasha visibly released a tiny amount of tension in his shoulders after a moment, when Tony put a hand on his back without being noticed.

“That just makes me more curious,” Clint countered, but Tony waited until Yasha pressed back into his hand, a subtle sign of permission.

“Well, we met more than once,” Tony replied, injecting far more humor into his voice than he truly felt, “considering he kept forgetting me.”

Tony continued to act relaxed, leaning forward and waving a hand idly as if he were telling a story about a particularly interesting vacation.  Yasha sighed once, but it sounded ever so grudgingly amused, as he recognized Tony’s antics.

Both of them ignored the concern quickly driving the amusement from the Avengers’ faces.

“What--” Clint began, but Tony continued to talk over him.

“But the first one was so long ago, I don’t even remember it,” Tony said, truthful but hiding the fact that he was too  _ young _ to remember the event.

“That would be when the Winter Soldier killed my entire family.”

Tony smirked under his mask as the Avengers’ jaws dropped, and they began to shout questions.

He only interrupted when he noticed that the doc had begun to look a little green around the edges.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, and the others stopped talking as they caught on.  “It’s all okay, it happened a long time ago.”

Bruce didn’t look particularly appeased.

“How the  _ hell _ are you two friends?”  Clint asked, staring at the pair of them.

“It wasn’t his idea,” Tony defended Yasha, “and he was horrified when he found out.”

Once again, the others looked disturbed when Tony alluded to the Winter Soldier’s lack of memory, but he ignored it again.

“You should hate me,” Yasha grumbled, eyeing him, but it was clearly a token protest.

Tony just shrugged.

“I got over it.  You all won’t understand, you haven’t lived my life,” he told the Avengers.  “Leave him alone.  I just told you because you asked, and it does make an interesting story to tell.  Isn’t it even more mysterious, how we ended up becoming friends?”

“I don’t understand you,” Natasha said after a pause.

“That’s probably a good thing,” Tony replied.  “Your head might explode if you did.”

The others sat down as Bruce continued to become less green, although he still looked disturbed.

“Mental note,” Tony reflected, “I shouldn’t mention that around Bruce again.”

“Please don’t,” Bruce replied, slightly glaring.

Tony shrugged, leaning back into his chair again, and as the Avengers hesitantly broke into more normal conversation again, he prodded Yasha repeatedly with his foot until the man loosened up a little, putting the guilt aside for the moment, again.

They really did have an unusual friendship, Tony knew, but he didn’t care.  He wasn’t going to trade it, murderous past and all.

When, late into the night, Tony and Yasha finally began to depart, Steve held Tony back as Yasha left ahead of him.

“What’s up, Capsicle?”  Tony said lightly, plastering a smile on his face.

“Please don’t pull any more stunts like that today,” Steve said, and the smile slipped from Tony’s face at his serious tone.

“I--”

“Wait,” Steve interrupted, cutting off his reply.  “Just listen.  I’ve lost too many friends already, and despite starting out as enemies, I think we all consider both you and the Soldier friends now-- you’re both practically Avengers.”

He paused, sighing, and for the first time, Tony thought he looked like he’d lived every bit of his time in the ice.

“I’m tired of burying friends, Iron Man, and I don’t want to bury you, too.”

Tony blinked, and swallowed thickly.

He had no idea what to say to that.

Evidently, he stayed quiet too long, as Steve frowned and peered at the suit’s glowing eyes.

“Iron Man?  You did hear me, didn’t you?”

Tony breathed deeply, his typical well of snark running dry for the moment.

“...I can promise you one thing,” he finally replied.  “You won’t ever have to bury me.”

Tony blasted away before Steve could speak again, running away from the too-heavy conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, I purposefully left Vanko out of this chapter. In my mind, he may have helped Stane and Hammer build their versions of the Iron Man suit, but he doesn’t really have a grudge, since Howard wasn’t around long enough to make an enemy of that family, and I think Stane would have kept Vanko’s father around. Or Vanko could be living in a nice apartment in Russian somewhere, well-off from his father’s fortune. I don’t really mind either way, but since he doesn’t feel particularly angry towards Tony in this ‘verse, he’s not appearing in this fic.
> 
> Also, Tony, goddammit, that’s not a funny story you should share. (This is one of the major and purposeful differences in my version of him for this story-- Tony isn’t nearly as bothered by his parents’ death as he should be, because of how skewed his upbringing was. And yeah, he’s being a bit insensitive towards Yasha here, since Yasha does still feel guilt over the whole thing, but Yasha doesn’t stop him because, even if he doesn’t fully realize it, he wants someone else to know who will react more properly. But don’t think the Avengers are going to turn on him, or something, that’s not where this is going. I just couldn’t resist writing this scene because of Tony’s evil sense of humor.)
> 
> (Oh, and if you don't remember when Tony EMP-proofed his suit, he made a note to do that after Clint shot him with that electrified arrow way back in chapter six, I think it was.)
> 
> Next Chapter: Oh, what’s this? Nic’s back again for a moment?


	19. The Protégé

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nic is six or seven in this chapter. (Yes, that means this is a flashback chapter. We’ll return to the present in the next one!)
> 
> (Side note, I think this was actually the second or third chapter I actually wrote for this fic, before I made it less linear in order to make it more interesting. Which is lucky, since I didn't have much time to write this week. Made some progress on the next chapter though! I'm just working through one conversation scene where the characters aren't quite cooperating.)

Nic put the final touches on the code, then hit enter and waited for the upload to complete.

Minutes later, he unplugged the cables connecting his computer to the pile of metal and wiring, then waited to see if his project worked.

Seconds later, the pile of metal shifted and made squeaking noises as it began to move.

The claw arm opened and closed around the camera designed to let it “see,” and Nic’s face split in a huge grin.

“Hey, welcome to the world.  My name is Nic, I created you.”

The robot made a few high-pitched beeping noises and promptly swung its arm-head around, sending several delicate pieces of equipment on Nic’s desk tumbling onto the floor, and nearly taking his computer screen with them.

Nic sighed, but the grin didn’t leave his face.

“Well, now I know  _ your _ name,” he grumbled, jokingly put-off.  “You’re going to be Dummy.”

The bot made a sad noise, and Nic rolled his eyes.

“Don’t give me that look,” Nic said, “you’re not half as cute as you think you are.”

Nic spent the better part of an hour watching his newly-created AI, proud as he could be.

“I can’t wait to introduce you to my friend Yasha,” he murmured at one point, and Dummy made a noise of inquiry, “next time he’s around.”

Nic just patted it on its metal head, and it crooned.

\---

When the door to his workshop opened, Nic immediately scowled.

“If it isn’t my favorite protégé,” the man declared, walking in with an agent on his heels, and Nic began reciting the first hundred digits of pi in his head, to keep from saying something that would get him yelled at by the bossman.  Again.

He wasn’t sure why they even bothered punishing him for treating Hammer like an idiot, because he _was_.  Hammer didn’t even understand that Nic was mocking him, most of the time, and the rest of the time, he just frowned slightly before babbling on.

The idiot even kept referring to _Nic_ as his apprentice or protégé.

As if Nic didn’t realize that half of Hammer Industries’ inventions in the past year were poor imitations of Nic’s work, and the rest were weapons Nic could have improved on in his sleep.

The idiot in question wandered over to Dummy and looked at it, confusion on his face.

“What is this?”  He asked, frowning, and Nic crossed his arms.

“It’s just a robot,” he said, deciding not to tell Hammer anything.  “It’s not done yet.”

Hammer stared at Dummy for another moment before turning his back on the AI.

“Why are you wasting time on… whatever that is?  I thought I assigned you a new assault rifle as homework?  You’ll never improve if you don’t practice!”

Nic rolled his eyes, scowling again, when Hammer wasn’t looking.

He’d finished the assault rifle in the first hour after Hammer left last time, and then took apart a grenade launcher and modified it to fire a disk which could magnetize itself to the bottom of a car or tank and explode, flipping the vehicle over.

Because he was bored.

“Here, Mr. Hammer, sir,” he said in the idiot-voice he reserved for, well, idiots, and handed the gun over.

Hammer grinned, ruffling Nic’s hair, and Nic scowled again.

“I thought I told you to call me Uncle, kid,” Hammer said, looking over the gun.  “Nice work, it looks almost as good as my company’s.”

Nic began reciting the second hundred digits of pi in his head.

_Backwards_.

\---

One week and several coffee-driven engineering binges later, Dummy had two brothers, You and Butterfingers, and Nic watched them roll around his workshop, crashing into each other, with a fond grin on his face.

Behind him, Yasha stood by the door he’d just entered through, watching the trio of robots with confusion clear in his eyes.

“Are they a threat?”  Yasha asked.

Nic shot him a look, one eyebrow raised.

“Maybe to my blender, since Dummy seems to have taken a liking to sticking oil and my wrenches in it, but not to me.  Look, guys,” Nic gestured to the bots, beckoning them over.  “This is your… cousin, Yasha.  He’s got a metal arm, too.”

The three bots rolled over, beeping happily, and began to croon appreciatively when Yasha held out his arm for inspection.  You spun in a circle, beeping his approval, while the other two poked and prodded the Soldier.

If Nic weren’t so familiar with Yasha’s microexpressions, he would have missed the tiny loosening of the corners of his mouth, which was as close to a smile as he ever got.

It was gone a moment later, but Nic took a mental snapshot in his brain, as Yasha turned to glance at him.

“They are… acceptable, but serve no tactical purpose,” he said, and Nic rolled his eyes.

“I didn’t build them to be weapons,” he sighed.

Yasha nodded, to Nic’s surprise-- he hadn’t expected a response.

“Next time, build one that is useful,” Yasha suggested.

Nic grinned at his weird menagerie of friends, reflecting that all of them were at least partly made of metal.  He wondered if that said something about _him_ , not that he cared.

One month later, he began working on a new AI which he referred to as SNOW.  If asked, he’d insist it stood for Some Novel Operating Workstation, but privately, Nic knew it was based on Yasha’s codename.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned before, a long time ago, that Tony renamed the AI he was building from SNOW to JARVIS after he found out his real name, in case everyone forgot. ^^ (The name SNOW was first mentioned in chapter 1, then the rename happened in chapter 5.)
> 
> (Geez, I only have three chapters to write left (one is already done). WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN. I am debating a sequel, or at least a shorter mini-sequel, besides the other bonus chapters I have left to write.)
> 
> Next Chapter: Tough (to write) conversations, Tony likes making dramatic entrances, and shit hits the fan... again... >8D


	20. Keeper of the Gate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back in the present, now!
> 
> This chapter contains one of the scenes that spawned this whole fic. No, I’m not grinning evilly, what are you talking about? I would neeeever do that...
> 
> (Also, Tony makes weird videos in his spare time, when he's tired. XD)

“Tony.”

“Hmm?”  Tony made an inquisitive sound, but didn’t look up from where he was elbows-deep in wires and metal, finishing the latest upgrade to the Iron Man suit.

“I’m going to show the Avengers my face.”

Tony nodded absently for a moment, before his brain caught up with his ears.

His jaw dropped, and the small screw he’d been clutching between his teeth dropped to the ground with a small  _ ting _ and made its escape.

“You’re what?”  He asked, then blinked and his shoulders slumped slightly.  “Oh, right.  Okay... good for you.”

Yasha wasn’t fooled, and walked closer, abandoning his position in the doorway.

“If you want to come along, you can,” he offered.

Tony tried to smile, but it came across as more of a pained grimace.

“Do you want me to come with?”  He asked.

Yasha didn’t blink, watching the young genius carefully.

“You know,” he began slowly, “even if Steve Rogers was Bucky Barnes’ best friend, I can still be yours too.  Or is that not allowed?  I can only be friends with one of you?”

“What?”  Tony exclaimed, and finally jerked his head again to meet Yasha’s gaze.

Abruptly, Tony shifted from feeling jealous to feeling like a jerk.

“No, of course not,” he said.  “You can have more than one friend.”

Yasha nodded, pleased that Tony had somewhat snapped out of his slump.

“I’m not going there to abandon you,” he added anyway.  “I’m going to come back.  So, I’ll ask again-- do you want to come with?”

Tony thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“No, not really.  Not unless you actually need me there for... for moral support or something.”

“I’ll survive,” Yasha said dryly, and made his way back to the door.  “You’ll be fine here, working on your suit?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony acknowledged, waving with a piece of the suit.  “I’m almost done here, and then JARVIS has been bugging me about some power surge he detected at SHIELD this morning.  I’ll stay busy.”

“Good,” Yasha replied, and left for Avengers Tower.

He felt slightly comforted that Tony was so busy-- things were generally calmer when the teenager was too busy to get bored, or get into trouble.

Tony, meanwhile, finished putting his newest suit back together, as he’d said he would, and then motioned for JARVIS to display the energy spike on one of his holoscreens.

“Okay, J,” he said, around the time Yasha began his revelation at Avengers Tower.  “Let’s have a look at those readings.”

_ “Of course, Sir,” _ the AI replied.   _ “The unusually high readings are coming from near SHIELD’s headquarters.  I would recommend that you also review code which was recently completed from the same systems.  They appear to be similar to outdated software you wrote in the past.” _

Tony frowned.

“Oh, Project Insight?  Alright, time to take a closer look at this...”

\---

When Yasha arrived at Avengers Tower, the tower’s computer systems informed him that only Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, and Bruce Banner were currently in the building.

The doctor was on his floor, while the other two appeared to be sparring in the gym.

Granting permission for the systems to announce his presence, Yasha waited in the living room of the common floor while the others arrived.

No one, except possibly Tony, would have been able to visibly detect his nervousness, but Yasha felt frustrated with himself for feeling it anyway.  He was the ex-Winter Soldier, he shouldn’t be afraid of revealing his identity to one of the last remnants of his half-still-forgotten past.

“Is something wrong?”

Yasha was jerked back into the present by Bruce’s arrival.

He shook his head, and the doctor studied him for a moment, before simply nodding and moving to sit in a nearby armchair.

Yasha couldn’t tell if the man had guessed his reason for coming, or if he was simply too used to surprises now, and was happy to wait patiently for whatever non-emergency information Yasha was going to impart.

The other two present Avengers arrived not long after, only slightly sweaty from their workout.

They must have just started, Yasha supposed, and then brushed aside the thought.

“What’s wrong?”  Steve unknowingly parroted Bruce’s question, and Yasha’s mouth quirked behind his mask, for a moment.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Bruce’s doing the same.

“Nothing more than usual,” Yasha replied to the question somewhat fatalistically.

Steve blinked, then frowned confusedly.

“Why are you here, then?”  He asked.  A moment later, he seemed to deem that as rude, and backpedaled quickly.

“Not that you’re not welcome here,” he added.

Natasha rolled her eyes, and Yasha’s mouth quirked up again, before he became solemn, remembering what he had come to say.

“I think you might want to sit down,” Bruce chimed in, and Yasha’s theory that the man had somehow guessed his reason for coming grew stronger.

Steve and Natasha followed the suggestion, and Yasha inhaled deeply.

“You all know I was the Winter Soldier,” he began, and the statement was met with nods.

“Iron Man and I,” he continued, almost saying  _ Tony _ before catching himself, “mentioned my... memory issues.”

“Yes,” Steve replied, “but you never explained what you meant.”

“How could you be the Winter Soldier, anyway?”  Bruce added.  “From what Nat and Clint have told me, the Winter Soldier has been active for decades, while you don’t look that old, from what I can tell.”

Yasha quietly let out a breath.

“I was kept cryogenically frozen between missions,” he explained, and watched Steve and Bruce blanch, while Natasha’s poker face became more rigid.  “When they woke me up, my memory was wiped before I was sent out.”

“You met Iron Man at some point during all this, didn’t you?”  Natasha asked, while the other two were still processing that information.

Yasha nodded.

“He was the first friend I could remember having, not that I understood the concept of a ‘friend’ until after he retrieved me.”

Natasha nodded, not seeming surprised.

“Who did that to you?”  Steve demanded.

Yasha eyed Bucky Barnes’ best friend, still unwilling to drag the Avengers into his and Tony’s war against Hydra.  At the very least, he didn’t want to mention it without talking to Tony first.

“That’s not why I came here,” he said instead, and all three Avengers frowned slightly.

“I began remembering my past, as the Winter Soldier,” Yasha explained, “but also the life I had before.”

“Who you were  _ before?” _ Steve repeated.

Yasha nodded and began to remove his goggles and his mask.

“My name was James Buchanan Barnes,” he said as he looked up, and the trio all stared in shock, then spoke at once.

“Oh dear.”

“Clint is not going to believe he missed this.”

“ _ Bucky?” _

“Hey, buddy,” Tony’s voice spoke over all three, in Yasha’s comm.  “I know this is  _ really _ bad timing, but we’ve got a little bit of a problem here.”

\---

While Yasha was busy unmasking himself, Tony had suited up and was flying towards Washington D.C. as fast as he could.

“JARVIS, please tell me the Avengers are all in New York, at least?”

_ “Agent Barton appears to be at SHIELD headquarters, Sir.” _ JARVIS reported.

Tony cursed.

“Call Yasha, and then we’re going to have to find Legolas,” he ordered.

When JARVIS opened a connection to Yasha, he spoke quickly.

“Hey, buddy,” he said.  “I know this is  _ really _ bad timing, but we’ve got a little bit of a problem over here.”

“Right now?”  Yasha asked, sounding different.

It took Tony a moment to realize the difference was the lack of his mask’s voice distortion.

Whoops.   _ Really bad timing, _ indeed.

“Yeah, bring them along too.  It looks like we don’t have a choice, they’re going to have to join the fight this time.  We’re done cutting off limbs, I have to get Pierce and the others  _ now _ or we’re all dead.”

As soon as he was sure Yasha and the Avengers were mobilizing, Tony told JARVIS to borrow Iron Man’s voice to explain, and disconnected the call.

“Hey, J?  I’m going to need all of SHIELD’s minions for this one.  Start hacking all their speakers and screens, and get me Big Bird while you’re working on that.”

JARVIS opened a line to Clint almost before Tony was done speaking.

"Barton!"  He barked into the comms, and could practically hear the agent flinch.

"Iron Man?”  Clint asked, clearly confused.

"Where are you?"

"What?"

"I don't have time to play hide-and-seek.  Where are you, right now?"

Even through the voice modulator, Tony knew he sounded worried.

"I'm at SHIELD.  What's going on?"

“No, be  _ specific. _  Where are you in the building?”

"Uh... hold on," Barton replied, clearly to whoever he was with.  After a moment, he continued.  "Iron Man?  I'm kind of busy--"

"I don't care," Tony interrupted, and read the archer’s location on his HUD, as JARVIS found it before he’d gotten a reply.  "Listen, you're on the fifty-fourth floor.  Can you get to the southeast corner?  There are floor-to-ceiling windows against both walls, right?"

There was a longer pause, and the sound of Barton walking.

"I'm not going to ask how you know any of that.  What are you doing?"

Tony ignored him again.

"Are you at the southeast corner?"  He demanded.

"Just a second... Yes.  Why am I here?"

"Wait a minute and you'll know."

Tony muted the call.

“JARVIS, time to let the cat out of the bag,” he said.  “Show SHIELD the video.”

“ _ Wait, _ ” Yasha’s voice cut in.  “What video?”

“Er, hey buddy...”

“Not the one you made when you hadn’t slept in a week, right?”  Yasha demanded, and Tony could hear inquisitive sounds in the background.

“Well, it’s not like we have a better option right now, and I’m a bit too busy to make up something on the spot,” Tony insisted.

He heard a strangled noise through the comms.

“I hate you sometimes,” Yasha mumbled, and Tony grinned.

“Hit it, J,” he repeated.

\---

Steve, Natasha and Bruce were asking Yasha what the hell was going on as he herded them into the Avengers’ quinjet, when all their screens when dark.  Before they could react, the screens flickered back on, showing SHIELD's logo.

“Drama queen,” Yasha muttered into his comms.  He couldn’t believe this was actually happening.

"What is--" Steve began, but a voice from the screen cut him off.

" _ SHIELD.  An organization founded by Agent Peggy Carter and Howard Stark from what was originally the SSR, after the defeat of Hydra. _ "

"What is going on?"  Steve futilely asked Natasha, who just shook her head, watching the screen.

Both of them recognized the modulated voice as Iron Man’s.

\---

_ "Almost there, Sir.  Agent Barton is watching the screens in the corner room." _  JARVIS said.

\---

The screens flickered to Hydra's blood-red symbol, and Steve felt a chill roll down his spine.

" _ But you were lied to, _ " Iron Man’s voice continued.

Somewhere in SHIELD, Directory Fury was shouting orders, demanding to know how Iron Man had taken over all their systems, but at the same time, listening to every word.

The symbol flickered back to SHIELD's eagle, before jittering between the two, and ending with an overlay of both, seemingly ripped and joined together.

" _ Hydra was not destroyed.  Key members survived and 'defected' to SHIELD, and their ideals survived.  New members were added to their ranks, and the heads regrew. _ "

The screen went black.

" _ Until they had infiltrated even the highest ranks of SHIELD. _ "

There was a short pause.

" _ How do I know this? _ "  Iron Man continued, seemingly aware of how most agents were staring at the screens in shock and horror, despite being pre-recorded.

A longer pause, and Steve gritted his teeth, annoyed by the drama his erstwhile teammate was purposefully adding.

" _ Hydra sent their best asset-- you might have heard of him, you call him the Winter Soldier-- and my only friend, to kill my parents, then they raised me.  You might have heard of them-- their names were Howard and Maria Stark.  Oh yeah-- hi, I’m Anthony Edward Stark.  Call me Tony. _ "  The voice modulation turned off as Tony named himself publicly, and from the Avengers’ quinjet, Yasha rolled his eyes again.

_ Drama queen,  _ indeed _. _  He’d snorted when Tony had first showed him the video, although he hadn’t thought it would actually be  _ used. _

The screens flickered back on, but the figure visible wasn't Tony.  It was a picture from a surveillance camera from one of the Avengers' fights, when Iron Man and the Winter Soldier had first publicly teamed up, and they were standing back to back against the Avengers, who weren’t visible on screen.

" _ I am Iron Man.  I stand with the ex-Winter Soldier against Hydra.  Who do you stand with?...  And does the person next to you stand on the same side? _ "

The camera went dark.

Clint was the first to recover.

"Iron Man?...  What... what the  _ hell _ was  _ that _ ?"

"That," Tony replied grimly, "was my cue."

Before Clint could react, two men dressed in STRIKE uniforms burst through the door, guns raised.  Clint had just enough time to reach for his bow and realize that it wasn't there before there was a crash from behind him, something hard hit him, and he was crashing back through the windows into open air.

He would forever maintain later that he most certainly did  _ not _ scream.

"Stop struggling!"  Tony ordered. "It's not that easy to hold onto you when you keep squirming!"

Clint made himself freeze, and realized Iron Man had grabbed him.

"Uh... thanks for the save," he gasped.

"Any time, Katniss."

“Now are you going to explain what the  _ hell was that?!” _

“I’d like to know that too,” Natasha added, as JARVIS had connected the incoming quinjet into the comm line.

“I didn’t think you’d actually use that,” Yasha grumbled, and Tony winced.

He’d made the video at the end of an engineering and Hydra-hunting binge, since he had initially wanted to reveal his identity with flair, but he had to admit it was designed more due to sleep deprivation than to  _ actually _ be released.

When he’d realized the need to turn SHIELD in on itself to prevent Hydra from launching Project Insight immediately, however, the video was the best he had on hand.

“We can talk about this later,” he exclaimed, heading for where JARVIS suspected Project Insight’s helicarriers were hidden.  “Short story is that all that was true-- yay, good for you, know you know both our identities--”

“Wait, what?”  Clint demanded.

“--But Hydra’s built something that can destroy hundreds of thousands of people at once, and I’m  _ a little bit busy right now.” _

“We’re almost there,” Yasha said grimly, and Tony grinned viciously, even though he wasn’t happy.

“Welcome to the war, you can yell at me later.  Yasha, J will send you my signal, find me when you get here.”

“ _ Don’t you dare--” _

“Sorry, gotta go,” Tony said, and dropped the connection as he blasted his way into Hydra’s underground base, shielding Clint as he did so.

His jaw dropped when he landed on a raised walkway and saw that there were  _ three _ of the monstrous helicarriers he’d seen the plans for online, when the files had only suggested one.

“Oh shit,” he muttered, and turned to Clint.

“Look, I’m going to need your help here.  This is what we have to do...”

\---

With Clint on his way to one of the helicarriers, Tony knew he had to take out the other two’s targeting chips, and he didn’t have time to wait for Yasha and the Avengers to arrive.

Luckily, he had one more friend at his back.

“JARVIS,” Tony began, “you’re going to take one of the chips, I’ll get the other.”

_ “Sir?” _ JARVIS asked.

Tony activated the suit’s release triggers, and stepped out of the suit, which closed behind him.  JARVIS kept the suit standing, and the suit’s eye holes stayed lit as the AI quickly caught on and took control.

_ “Sir, you would be safer if you stayed in the suit and disabled both yourself,” _ the AI insisted.

“Might not have time, J,” Tony replied, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over his head.

At least it was black, and he blended in with the dark walls somewhat.

“Just drop me in one ship and get to the other, as quickly as you can.”

_ “Yes, Sir,” _ JARVIS replied, not hiding his concern or disapproval, but he followed Tony’s directions.

Since the AI was capable of being stealthy more than his creator, Tony was deposited near the chip’s location on one ship without detection, before the suit flew off towards the last helicarrier.

“I’ve got the chip,” Tony heard Clint say over the comms.  “I’m working on taking out as much of the ship as I can!”

In the distance, Tony could hear things starting to explode, as he reached for his own chip.

He pulled it out, grinning with a dark sort of humor and anticipation.

Hydra would pay for using his designs and distorting them into these monstrosities.

_ “The second helicarrier has been disabled,” _ JARVIS reported, and Tony knew it had been broadcast to the Avengers as well, since he used the Iron Man distorter instead of his normal voice.

“I’ve got the last one too,” Tony replied, only transmitting to JARVIS.

“Give that to me and I won’t kill you,” a voice said from behind him.

Tony froze.

_ “Sir!” _

“Turn around.  Slowly.”

Tony turned, arms mostly raised with the chip still in one hand.

“I’d say it was nice to see you again, but it isn’t,” Tony said dryly.

Killian scoffed at him.

“I told Hydra they should have let me kill you.  They didn’t listen, but I knew you would be back when you realized what they were building.  I’m just glad I managed to find you before they did.”

“So, you’re a little bitter that I didn’t fix your little lava problem for you, huh?”  Tony jabbed back.

Killian’s eyes still glowed slightly orange, and the lines on his skin flared in response to the insult.

Still in danger of exploding, then, Tony noted.

“I’ll figure it out without you,” Killian replied.  “Now give me that chip, or I’ll burn you alive.  You couldn’t even break it anyway, since you left your suit at home.  I bet you kept some of Extremis’ abilities now, don’t you?”

Tony smiled grimly, despite knowing that he was in big trouble if JARVIS couldn’t get there soon.

And by the sound of alerted Hydra agents in the distance, and likely on the other ships, that might not be likely.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied, defaulting to snark, “I’d rather be me than a ticking time bomb.  Tell me, how long do you think you have before you explode like a cheap bag of popcorn?”

Killian’s eyes narrowed, and Tony judged his irritation levels carefully.

_ Screw it _ , he thought after Killian kept his temper.

Tony blew him a raspberry, and Killian threw himself towards Tony, grabbing him around the neck.

“You need to learn some  _ respect _ , kid.”

Tony grinned, ignoring the pain around his neck.

He’d kept Extremis’ healing for reasons like this.

“For a moron like you?  Not likely,” Tony replied, and showed Killian the now-melted chip, which he’d held against Killian’s burning arm.

Tony didn’t get to relish Killian’s expression of fury for long-- although he wondered dimly whether his healing could fix him if Killian exploded-- before he felt a prick in his arm.

He glanced down to see a tranquilizer dart, and groaned.

_Shit_ , he thought, and crumpled to the ground as Killian released him.   _Not again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. XD Poor Tony, how the hell did you become the princess in need of rescuing twice now?
> 
> (Oh, and “Keeper of the Gate” is a title for the mythical hydra. I almost just called this chapter “Hail Hydra,” but I decided to be more subtle, since Yasha had to have his little identity reveal first...)
> 
> Next Chapter: Oh look, familiar unfriendly faces! Also, another rescue attempt, which of course goes perfectly smoothly and absolutely nothing goes wrong...


	21. Not a Damsel, Possibly in Distress (Redux)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alt chapter title: Worst. Rescue. Ever.
> 
> THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN FIGHTING ME, WOW. My muse crawled under a damn rock since the last update, and I had to drag her out kicking and screaming, I’m sorry. I had two versions of this chapter and they were fighting to see which would end up in this fic, plus I’ve had little writing time recently. Anyway, I hope you all end up liking the version which won the fight! (This version is... nicer? XD)

If Yasha had never been the Winter Soldier, he would have been pacing in the back of the quinjet as they neared SHIELD headquarters to help Tony and Clint, the screens in the jet still blank after Tony’s video had ended.

However, since he had been, his training forced him to sit silently instead, staring stonily at the opposing wall of the quinjet as JARVIS piloted them towards their destination.

(The Avengers seemed to have marked the quinjet’s unpiloted flight up to an autopilot upgrade, but Yasha couldn’t be bothered to correct them, or out JARVIS’s existence, at the moment.)

Despite his fixed gaze-- which had initially and coincidentally been located directly through Bruce’s head at first, until the slightly unnerved man had changed seats-- he could see Natasha and Bruce both eyeing him, their gazes assessing but not distrustful, from their seats in the back of the jet.

Steve, however, was sitting directly beside him, staring at him like a hawk watching its prey... if the hawk in question happened to be both incredibly awed and nervous, and the prey was reasonably able to beat the hawk to death with its fist or vanish into thin air.

Yasha reflected that Tony might possibly have been brushing off on him.

“Bucky, it’s going to be okay,” Steve said finally, his patience apparently exhausted.  “We’re going to get there in time and help Iron-- er, Stark, fight Hydra.”

Yasha let out a short sigh.

“Not to interrupt,” Bruce interrupted, “but can we discuss that a little more?  I wasn’t alive in the second world war, and I’m not an agent or an assassin, so I’m a little out of my depth here.”

Yasha found that reasonable, at least, and it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do on the flight over, other than straighten Steve out on what, exactly, his name was now.

“I didn’t memorize the files,” he said first, as a disclaimer.  “I read the files they had on me, but mostly, you’d need to ask Tony.”

“The general idea would be fine for now,” Bruce said, unbothered.

Yasha breathed deeply first, then began, first with how Hydra had survived after World War II, and then with the bare minimum of facts afterwards-- that Tony had escaped first, having found out who he’d really been working for, then gone back and freed Yasha, before they both started targeting Hydra and companies or governments who had been working with them knowingly.

By the end, all three Avengers looked newly disturbed.

“Why didn’t you ask us for help before, Buck?”  Steve asked, breaking the silence.

Yasha didn’t really want to answer, and was spared from it.

“Fresh out of Hydra,” Natasha replied, “and with the Avengers trying to stop both Iron Man and the Winter Soldier, I doubt they had any reason to trust us.  Or we to believe them.”

“Bucky knows I’d believe him!”  Steve argued, frowning back at her.

“But I’m not him,” Yasha replied, and watched Steve’s face fall, then settle into a steely determination.

“I won’t stop you if you insist on calling me that,” Yasha continued, “but I’m not the same person anymore.  I just happen to have mostly the same body, and  _ some _ of his memories.  I’ve lived much longer as the Winter Soldier than James Barnes, and I remember more of that, too.”

“Then you’d rather we call you, what?  The Winter Soldier?  I can’t do that, Buck,” Steve insisted.

Yasha shook his head.

“Tony calls me Yasha,” he replied.  “You all could call me that.  I’ll respond to Bucky for you, because you don’t seem to be able to stop, but you need to realize I’m not the man you knew-- or at least, not only him.”

Steve seemed ready to respond, but Natasha silenced him with a look.

Yasha appreciated it, and shortly after, there was a small amount of chatter including Clint over the comms, as Tony and he began disabling what apparently were  _ three _ advanced helicarriers belonging to Hydra.

By the time they touched down, all they saw was chaos in the distance as SHIELD and Hydra began turning on each other-- or entered standoffs with anyone they thought might be the wrong side-- and Clint, apparently speaking with Iron Man.

It was immediately clear to Yasha that Tony wasn’t in the suit, just by its stance.  After all, he’d watched Tony work with JARVIS until he could move the suit on his own.  He had no doubt that JARVIS had told Clint, since the man looked concerned, and also gazed at Yasha with a new awed expression, alerting him to the fact that he’d been verbally unmasked before they’d arrived, as well.

“Iron Man!  Er, Tony?”  Bruce asked, relieved that his friend seemed to be alright.

Yasha and Clint were both shaking their heads before JARVIS could respond.

“Meet JARVIS, Tony’s artificial intelligence,” Yasha said, as JARVIS removed one gauntlet to reveal that there was no one inside the suit.

“Tony Stark ordered me to target one helicarrier while he went to the other, without armor,” JARVIS explained, and for the first time in the Avengers’ presence, he spoke using his own voice.  “He successfully removed the chip and destroyed it, as evidenced by its melted remains being located on the helicarrier, but he was taken again.  I reviewed the footage, and it seems that Hydra is working with Aldrich Killian again.”

“Why didn’t you go after him immediately?”  Natasha asked, sounding curious but not judgemental.

“It was logical to wait for backup before pursuing him physically.  I am tracking his location through SHIELD’s satellites,” JARVIS replied.

“I am going to want to speak with you more later, if you’re willing,” Bruce said, still appearing caught on  _ artificial intelligence _ , “but for now, we should go after him.”

Yasha nodded his agreement, and turned to march back to the quinjet without waiting for the others to respond.

It didn’t matter, as he could hear them immediately begin to follow, and JARVIS moved the suit to step evenly with Yasha.

“We’re going to get him back, JARVIS,” Yasha declared.

_ “Of course we are,” _ JARVIS replied.   _ “Hopefully before Sir can anger his captors too much.” _

Yasha began walking faster.

\---

While Yasha, JARVIS, and the Avengers were boarding the quinjet again and coming to his rescue, Tony was waking up.

He was rather securely tied to a chair, Tony noted first, his mouth tasted like cotton and his neck still felt rather scorched, even though he could tell his skin was already healed.

So, all in all, not the worst way to wake up, but certainly not pleasant.

There was no one else around, so he took the chance to examine his surroundings.

He was tied with rope to a metal chair, with knots tight enough that he doubted he’d be working his way free anytime soon.  Plus, since his forearms were tied to the arms of the chair and not behind him, he couldn’t even access the lock pick hidden under the face of his watch.

(What?  It paid to be paranoid, sometimes, and his best friend was an  _ assassin. _ )

The rest of the room, that he could see, was plain, with tiled floors and white walls.  There wasn’t much furniture except for a desk in front of him, but out of reach, with several monitors on it and a keyboard.  The monitors were all displaying security feeds of what he assumed was the rest of the building-- so far, at least, things seemed peaceful, with presumably agents of Hydra patrolling around, no disturbance in sight.

Above the monitors, he could see likely-reinforced glass, looking into a nearly-identical but empty room, with a door on the far side.

A security camera was also positioned so someone could clearly see Tony, in the corner of the room, so he figured he didn’t have long before his captors would notice he was awake.

From the computer set-up, however, Tony figured he would be threatened until he “gave in” and used his computer skills once again.

Even though it was clearly Hydra this time who had him, it was hard to be too afraid of something so predictable.

Besides, he knew Yasha, and probably the Avengers, were probably on their way, and boy, was Yasha going to be  _ pissed. _

He was just imagining Yasha beating his captors to a pulp, a snarky little smirk on his face, when he heard a door behind him open, and someone entered the room.

When the man entered his field of vision (Tony refused to turn around to see who it was), Tony withheld a groan.

Of  _ course. _

“Hello again,  _ Uncle _ Pierce,” Tony greeted the man, sarcasm almost dripping from his voice.  “Not dead yet?”

“Despite your efforts, no,” Alexander Pierce responded.  “Hydra always survives.”

Tony snorted.

“Tell that to the Avengers, and the loyal members of SHIELD.  They’re currently ripping apart Hydra as best they can, I’m sure,” he replied, “and now the world will know about you.”

Pierce waved this off easily.

“Losing Project Insight was a setback, I’ll admit, but Hydra always has backup plans.  And we can always build more, now that we have the plans, and we don’t even need to hide in SHIELD’s shadow.  I could almost thank you.”

Tony growled.

“You can thank me by never  _ perverting _ my tech like that again,” he nearly shouted.  “How dare you turn my projects into that monstrosity!”

“We didn’t have to make many changes,” the man said, smiling, and began to pace around Tony’s seat like a lion admiring its prey.  “Face it, you’re just like your father was-- you never knew when projects were simply too dangerous to finish.”

Tony fought the sharp stab of guilt he felt at that statement.

He’d read the files on his father and knew all about his so-called “bad babies,” the tech he made that were so dangerous, even Howard Stark had regretted creating them.  Tony had thought he’d done a fair job at leaving his own too-dangerous tech plans as just that-- plans in his mind and nowhere else-- but he’d actually built a few, like the initial helicarrier designs, which he was now realizing should also have never been built.

He wasn’t sure if the Iron Man suit would, in time, become one of those regrets too.

“If I’d known who you were, Hydra would never have survived until now,” Tony said fiercely, breaking his train of thought.

Pierce smiled darkly again.

“Perhaps,” he acknowledged, “but you didn’t, and after all your efforts to destroy us, you’ve delivered yourself straight back into our hands.”

“Good luck getting me to do anything for you, though,” Tony replied.  “The instant you give me that keyboard, I’ll do the opposite of whatever you tell me to do.”

“Of course you would,” Pierce replied, seeming unconcerned.

For the first time, Tony felt a creeping thread of worry.

“That’s why I have something which will motivate you much better than simple threats,” Pierce continued.

When he explained, Tony felt the blood drain from his face.

“Ah, and right on time, it seems the Avengers are here,” Pierce added, and sure enough, Tony could see a fight clearly starting on the cameras.

Pierce just smiled as Tony fought futilely against his bindings, waiting.

“I look forward to seeing the Winter Soldier again, don’t you?  And then I can watch as Hydra’s best asset kills the Avengers.”  He asked cruelly, and Tony continued to fight frantically against the ropes.

Then the far door in the room ahead of him burst open, and Tony knew he’d run out of time.

\---

The motley rescue crew met resistance immediately after landing the quinjet on the roof of the building where Tony was being held, according to JARVIS’s tracking.

Clint began to curse when he saw where they were, as JARVIS explained to the confused Yasha that the base was supposedly one of SHIELD’s.

They didn’t have time to speak again before more than a dozen Hydra agents began shooting at them.

JARVIS, still piloting the Iron Man suit, began using the metal as a shield for Bruce and Natasha, until Bruce had transformed into the Hulk and Natasha found cover elsewhere, then began shooting or stunning the enemy agents in return.

Yasha deflected bullets with his metal arm until he was could find a shot, and systematically began taking apart the base’s defenses.

They still had at least another floor to descend, however, when yet another round of backup Hydra agents arrived-- and this time, they’d brought more literal fire power.

Yasha cursed and had to duck behind the Iron Man suit for a moment as Killian led the new batch of still-explosive Extremis-powered agents towards them.

“We’re not making enough progress,” he shouted at the others, and he received various frustrated noises of agreement in reply, as well as the Hulk’s distinct roar of displeasure.

“You go on ahead,” Steve said, and Yasha turned his head slightly to catch the Avenger’s eye.

The captain had still barely let Yasha out of his sight, and it annoyed Yasha to no limit, despite being aware the concern was that he would vanish into thin air, not that he would turn on them.

“Go,” Natasha added over the comms, grunting slightly as she launched herself at another agent, her deadly thighs locking around the man’s neck before she flipped and threw him to the ground.  “We’ll cover you.”

Yasha didn’t wait for another moment, ignoring the agents other than using his arm to deflect bullets or flame, finding a hole in their defenses and bursting straight through.

He shot a few straggling agents who weren’t lit up like volcanos and kept running, headed straight into the lowest levels of the base.

In the end, he had to find and terrifying one young agent into revealing where the hostage had been taken, and then he was bursting through a final door before catching sight of Tony, through a glass wall.

“Tony!”

Instead of looking relieved, however, Tony immediately began shouting.

“Get out of here!”  He screamed, and Yasha froze, unsure, recognizing Alexander Pierce standing behind him.

Yasha knew that Tony would never have turned, which meant--

“It’s a trap,” Yasha told the Avengers and JARVIS through the comms, but his earpiece was filled with static, and he knew they hadn’t heard him.

_ Signal jammer, _ Yasha thought, but most of his attention was on the wall and glass separating him from Tony, and the still-shouting genius on the other side.

“Get out!”  He repeated, but Yasha shook his head.

“I’m not leaving you,” Yasha said quietly, but Tony heard him.

Then he paused, and Yasha realized, with a feeling like someone had cracked a particularly cold egg over his head, that Pierce was probably going to activate the Winter Soldier, and probably order the asset to kill Tony.

Pierce noticed the slight stiffening of the ex-Winter Soldier’s face, and smiled slightly.

Then he opened his mouth and began to speak, and each word seemed to hang heavily in the room.

_ “Longing.” _

_ NO, _ Yasha’s thoughts were screaming, as he shouted over both Tony and Pierce, clapping his hands over his ears.

_ “Rusted.” _

Tony was still shouting as Pierce continued to speak, yelling curses and threats towards Pierce, but gradually fell silent.  Yasha couldn’t manage to look at him, unable to stop himself from shaking slightly as he also fell silent, waiting for the too-familiar tug of the words to pull him under.  He didn’t want to see the disappointment in his face before he couldn’t think for himself again.

As Pierce spoke the final words, silence fell in the room, and even Yasha’s panicked mind was still, the silence before the storm.

Then he looked up slowly, and me the dead gaze of his best friend.

He blinked, and then his muscles unlocked, causing him to take one lurching step away.

The stony gaze of the Winter Soldier looked completely out of place on Tony’s face, as the genius continued to sit motionless, eyes staring directly forward.

_ “Good,” _ Pierce spoke again, before stepping forward and cutting Tony free from the chair to which he’d been tied.

“Get away from him,” Yasha growled futilely.

“Now,” Pierce continued, ignoring Yasha and gesturing in front of them, “you’re going to kill the Avengers.”

Yasha’s eyes widened slightly, before stepping forward and slamming his metal fist into the glass.

It didn’t fracture, and he realized it, and the walls around it, were reinforced against his strength, like many of the rooms meant to contain the Winter Soldier.

“How is he supposed to do that?  He doesn’t have his suit.  Leave him alone,  _ I’m _ supposed to be your asset, not him!”  Yasha shouted at Pierce.

“You  _ were _ Hydra’s best asset,” the man answered, sounding almost bored, “but for all your training, you still won’t survive something as simple as gas in the air vents.”

“Seal the vents to this room,” Pierce ordered again, as Tony stepped towards the computer on the desk in front of him, “and release the gas in the rest of the building.  Let the Winter Soldier live long enough to see his new friends die.”

“You’d poison all your agents as well?”  Yasha demanded, even though he knew the answer.

“Of course,” Pierce answered, meeting Yasha’s gaze evenly.  “They would all give their lives for Hydra.”

Tony continued typing, and Yasha could hear the faint sounds of vents sealing themselves.

He slammed his fist into the wall repeatedly, even though he knew he couldn’t get into the room in time.

When Tony stopped typing, he stood straight again, and Yasha met his empty gaze.

Then Tony  _ winked. _

Yasha’s eyes widened in horror as he heard the gas begin to flow, and he slammed his fist in the glass again.

“Tony,  _ no!” _

Pierce barely had time to realize what was happening before he and Tony crumpled to the floor, gas filling the room.

\---

“You’re a bastard.”

That was what Tony woke up to, blinking away unconsciousness and feeling like someone had taken a jackhammer to his brain.

“What?”  He asked, his voice croaking.

He woke up more fully, and realized he was lying in a hospital bed.  His throat didn’t hurt anymore, suggesting he’d been healing for a while, but his chest burned.

He blinked again, his vision clearing slightly, and recognized Yasha, sitting in a chair at his bedside.

A few more seconds, and Tony jackhammered upwards, realizing that he didn’t recognize the room.

“Slowly,” Yasha ordered, leaning forward to push Tony back down, and Tony sagged back into the thin mattress, head spinning.

“Where am I?”  Tony asked, pressing one hand to his forehead, and the other to his chest.

“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize this place,” Yasha said, surprisingly lightly.  “You paid for it, after all.”

Tony frowned, looking around, and finally realized.

“Why are we in Avengers Tower?”

“Because they take care of their friends, even when their friends are  _ morons with a death wish, _ who don’t wait to be rescued before they nearly kill themselves,” Yasha growled.  “If you didn’t have Extremis, you would be dead right now.  You nearly died anyway.”

Tony winced.

“Yeah, well,  _ worst rescue ever, _ maybe if you hadn’t taken so long, I wouldn’t have needed to do anything,” Tony joked.

“Why didn’t the activation words work on you?”  Yasha asked, ignoring his comment.

Tony sighed and shrugged, then regretted the motion when his chest hurt again.

“Hell if I know.  If I had to guess, it’s not like Pierce-- he is dead, right?”

Yasha nodded when Tony paused, and the corner of Tony’s mouth twitched into a smirk for a moment before he took a breath and continued.

“--Right, well, it’s not like he was wiping my memories all the time, like he was with you.  The programming probably doesn’t work so well without repeat enforcement.  I don’t have any gaps in my memory while I was there, so they must only have done it when they first got their hands on me, to make me forget my parents and not go looking for information on them.”

Yasha nodded slowly, accepting the theory.

“Or it’s just because I’m a genius,” Tony added, his voice purposefully light and flippant.

Yasha squinted at him, and Tony waited.

“Did you just call me an idiot?” Yasha asked, and Tony blinked, thrown off-balance.

“What?  No, I didn’t mean that, I just--”

Yasha was still laughing when JARVIS announced that the Avengers were on their way, having officially integrated his program into the tower while Tony was unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, at least I didn’t take the several opportunities in this chapter to leave you all with a cliffhanger again! XD
> 
> I’m not going to promise an update this weekend since I have two exams and more projects to deal with by mid-week, but I’ll definitely have one after all that, since I’ll be on break! (I should really stop making time-related guesses, since every time I do, my schedule explodes and my muse crawls under a rock.
> 
> On the upside, only the next chapter is still unwritten, so there won’t be another pause before the last one! (Holy cow there’s only two left NO WHY I AM NOT DONE WITH THIS VERSE YET YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND.)
> 
> (Oh, and FYI, I opened up anon comments on all my fics, but if people start getting mean or spammy, I'll close them again. Please be polite!)
> 
> Next Chapter: With no more secrets left to hide, Tony ACTUALLY has to talk to the Avengers, and everyone else he’s been hiding from. Also, since we all know government organizations are airtight and never leak secrets, clearly the rest of the world doesn’t find out that Tony Stark is alive... right? Right?... Yeah, no, Tony’s going to have to deal with that...


	22. The Consulting Avengers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter picks up immediately where the previous one left off.

“JARVIS?”  Tony began quietly, when Yasha left the room to let the Avengers in to see him.

_ “Yes, Sir?” _  The AI replied, and Tony wondered just how much his AI had talked to the Avengers, for him to fully be installed in the tower.

“If I need to bail, you’ll have one of the suits waiting outside the window, right?”

The distinct silence he received in response told Tony how little JARVIS approved of that idea.  Before the AI could answer, the door opened again, but Tony had confidence that there  _ would _ , in fact, be an Iron Man suit hovering outside of the tower if he decided to run for it.

Yasha wouldn’t be happy, though, so Tony steeled himself to have to explain himself to the Avengers, at least in part.

He didn’t, Tony reminded himself, actually need their approval.  And it wouldn’t hurt at all when they didn’t give it.

Not at all.

“Iron Man?”

Bruce’s voice made Tony blink as he focused more on the heroes who had just crammed into the room, and he winced slightly.

“You know who I am, you can call me Tony,” he said, and earned a concerned smile from the doctor.

“Tony--”  Steve began, and Tony knew he was going to get a lecture, but whatever speech the captain had prepared was cut off by a wide-eyed Clint.

“It’s _ you!” _  The agent shouted, pointing at Tony, and Tony couldn’t hold back a smirk.

The other Avengers just looked confused, and Bruce had flinched at the sudden shout from behind him.

“Clint?”  Natasha asked, eyeing him in confusion.

“You’re that smartass kid from SHIELD!”  Clint continued.

“I changed my mind, can I have that autograph now?”  Tony asked in a falsely innocent voice, and Clint glared at him in reply, but without any real heat.

“You’ve met?”  Natasha asked, looking between the two of them.

“Not really,” Tony replied, shrugging and dropping the innocent look.  “I ran into Big Bird when I was at SHIELD before, and I promised to help him scare the interns.”

Natasha looked at him knowingly.

“So you’re the kid who won me twenty bucks.”  She turned to the other Avengers briefly and met their gazes.

“I’m keeping him.”

“What?”  Steve, Clint, and Tony all spoke at once.

“I’m going to have to train you, though,” she said, turning back to Tony.  “You’re rather scrawny out of the Iron Man suit.”

Tony blinked rapidly, ignoring how Yasha was smirking from the doorway, where the Avengers couldn’t see.

“Hold on, I’m nobody’s minion.  And no one said anything about training with you.”

“I did,” Natasha said, as Steve interrupted.

“Wait a minute, he’s a kid!  He shouldn’t be fighting, it’s not--”

Natasha just turned and stared at him.

“I started being trained when I was younger than he was, Steve,” she said quietly.  “He’s been fighting nearly on his own already--”

She shot a look at Yasha, who nodded in acknowledgement.

“--and I don’t think he’s going to stop just because you think he’s too young.”

Steve still looked ready to argue, but Clint raised his hand.

“I’m with Nat on this one,” he said, shrugging.  “I’d be a hypocrite if I said anything else, since I was doing dangerous things by his age and I didn’t have a suit of armor while I was doing it.”

Steve turned to Bruce for support, but Bruce just looked away, staring at the wall and fidgeting slightly.

“Bruce?”

“He knew already,” Yasha interjected, and earned himself a stern glance from the doctor.

“What?”  Steve demanded.

“The Hulk could tell,” Tony partially explained, still wondering how the hell any of this was happening.  “You all do remember that I’m not an Avenger, right?  I don’t need your permission to do anything.”

That earned him several looks, ranging from resigned to irritated, and he crossed his arms.

“Where have you two even been living?”  Steve asked, dropping the fight for the moment.

He was looking at Yasha, but Yasha gave no indication that he was going to reply, instead looking at Tony.

Tony sighed.

“Well, we were both with Hydra for a while, as you’ve probably figured out by now.  I was kidnapped, built the first Iron Man suit to escape, and then broke Yasha out later.  We live in a building I own now.”

Steve blinked.

“You own a building?”

“Hold on,” Clint interrupted.  “I remember when Iron Man first became active.  The Winter Soldier didn’t appear until a couple years later.”

“That wasn’t a question,” Tony pointed out, when Clint paused as if expecting a response.

He didn’t want to have to justify his life to anyone, and if Yasha weren’t giving him a knowing stare, promising an argument later if Tony went for the shortcut to the street, he’d be gone by now.

“Hero or not, you  _ are _ still a kid.  Who were you living with until you broke him out?”  Clint asked, pointing at Yasha with his thumb.

Tony’s face darkened.

“That’s none of your business,” he half-snarled, and Clint automatically took a half-step back.

There was silence for a while, as the Avengers seemed surprised by his anger.

“But there was someone?”  Bruce eventually asked.

Tony nodded stiffly, and the doctor dropped it.

“Who are you living with now?”  Steve asked, and Tony snorted.

In lieu of answering, he just waved towards Yasha, still in the corner.

“No offense, Bucky,” Steve began, and Tony exhaled heavily through his nose, “but you’re not exactly... the best person to take care of a kid anymore.  There wasn’t anyone else?”

Yasha’s straight face didn’t give away if he took offense or not, but Tony’s did.

He slammed his hand down on the small table next to the bed, and a couple Avengers flinched at the noise.  Tony himself winced as the motion jarred his chest and his still-sensitive lungs.

“The two of us have been fighting Hydra,  _ and the Avengers _ , since before I found you in the ice.   _ None of you get to tell me I need an adult, when I’ve lived through more than most of you!” _

Once he started, he found it awfully hard to stop, even though shouting hurt his lungs as well.

“I rescued myself from terrorists with a hole in my chest, I got the Winter Soldier away from Hydra when none of your precious  _ adults _ at SHIELD even knew he existed, let alone that Hydra was right under their noses, and I started a company which has already made me one of the richest men in the world.   _ Don’t you dare tell me how to live.” _

Ignoring the shocked looks on the Avengers’ faces, Tony decided it was time to take his exit.

Just before he moved, Tony caught the resigned look on Yasha’s face, before the ex-assassin took his leave out the door, before the Avengers could realize what was happening.

Tony stood and leapt out the window before anyone else moved a muscle, making a mental note as he began to fall about how he needed to improve the strength of the tower’s windows.

After all, he didn’t want just anyone to be able to jump out-- or particularly, in-- of the tower that easily.

JARVIS caught him in the suit before he’d fallen twenty feet, but he caught a glimpse of shocked faces before the helmet closed over his face.

“Well that went well,” he grumbled, and JARVIS elected not to comment as they flew away from the tower.

\---

A day later, Tony reluctantly met with Pepper in her office at Arc Industries, activating a small device in his pocket in order to render any possible cameras or microphones in range useless.

“What did you need to talk to me about?”  She asked, and Tony smiled wryly.

“Some... things have happened, and I figure you need to know before everyone does,” he began, and immediately Pepper’s face shifted into a look of vague dread.

He’d begun to think she only made that face around him, right before he presented something he’d made on an engineering binge the fifty hours before, which  _ might _ not be legal to produce, or did something else equally dubious.

“Is this going to affect our stock prices?”  She asked reluctantly.

Tony shrugged.

“Probably.  But that’s not the point.”

“What  _ is _ the point, Tony?”

“I’m Iron Man,” he said, and watched her just blink in response, face frozen in place.

“Long story short, I was raised by SHIELD, except they were actually Hydra, until I was kidnapped, I rescued myself, rescued Yasha-- you met him before-- and then I--”

“Tony.”

Tony paused his pacing, hands flapping about in mid-air, and turned back towards her.

“I don’t know what half of that means.”

Tony blinked, then sighed, lowering his hands.

“This might take a while,” he said, and started over.

Tony explained most of his life story to Pepper, who listened silently despite the growing look of slightly-horrified surprise on her face.

When he was done, there was a moment of silence before Pepper stood up quietly, then walked over to Tony and hugged him.

He stood stiffly in her arms for a moment, unused to the contact and not exactly sure how he should respond, before his body mostly relaxed.

After a minute, she released him, and Tony ignored the signs of wetness in her eyes.

“I’ll schedule a press conference to announce who Arc Industries’ mysterious head engineer is, and contact our lawyers to bring Tony Stark back from the dead.  Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”  She said after another moment, and his mouth twitched into a smile before he realized it.

“Just one more thing, Pep-- I need to repay a favor.  Can you find a reason to hire the ex-liaison between Stane Industries and the military?”

\---

Tony continued to avoid the Avengers’ attempts to call the now-revived Tony Stark, since being alive again (officially) came with having a public phone number, but his ability to evade was diminished when they started stalking him in person.

“Why are you on my couch.”

The person lounging in his apartment ignored him, continuing to flip through the channels on his television.

“You know, questions should usually have question marks at the end,” Clint pointed out.

Tony rolled his eyes, knowing the archer couldn’t see.

“This is why I don’t leave my workshop,” Tony grumbled under his breath.

“It was more of an implied order to get out,” he said, louder.

Clint shrugged.

“You’ve got a nice place.  It’s even nicer than our rooms in the tower,” he replied, ignoring Tony.

Tony sighed.

“If you’re here to talk about Iron Man or the Avengers, you can get out.”

“Nah, man, I’m just here to eat all your food and steal your tv.  Oh, and Nat is getting pissy because her minion is avoiding her.”

Tony walked into his rarely-used kitchen and peeked into his freezer.

Sure enough, he was down a couple pizza boxes.

“I’m not a restaurant, and I’m not her minion,” Tony replied, resigned to the fact that Clint wasn’t going anywhere, unless he decided to break out the suit and turn it into a fight.

“You are both of those things, Iron Tyke,” Clint replied, and Tony resisted the urge to throw something at him.

After a minute of Tony’s annoyed silence, Clint finally looked at him over the back of the couch.

“I thought we were friends, man.  I don’t care that you’re a kid.  Now you can stick another pizza in the oven and help me figure out which movie to watch, or you can try to avoid the Black Widow when she shows up any minute now and tries to drag you off to train you.”

Tony stood still for a moment longer, arms crossed, before giving in and turning back towards the freezer.

“Good choice,” Clint pointed out.  “Oh, and I texted Yasha to join us-- I told him I could wear you down!”

Tony grumbled something about traitors and backstabbing friends (ignoring the brief flash of satisfaction that Clint hadn’t referred to Yasha as Bucky), but he plopped down on the opposite end of the couch and stole the remote back.

Natasha, sure enough, showed up fifteen minutes into the start of the movie, and she eyed them for a moment before deciding to put off dragging Tony to the gym, seating herself instead on the adjacent arm chair.

Almost immediately, movie night apparently became a tradition in Tony’s apartment, despite his protests (and many glares at Yasha, and towards the ceiling at JARVIS, who was letting them all in).  Clint and Natasha were regular fixtures, and soon they began dragging Bruce along as well.

Steve hadn’t shown up yet, but Yasha told him that he was getting over the issue of Tony’s age-- and he was all too aware that Tony wouldn’t react so well to him dropping in without warning, after their last meeting.

And eventually, after movie nights came storytime, and Tony finally granted Yasha permission to bring the stuffy captain over too.

\---

“They just  _ gave _ you twenty-four missiles and didn’t question what you were building with them?”

“Of course not,” Tony scoffed, waving off Steve’s disbelief.  “I gave them the Jericho before we got the second dozen.”

“The  _ what?” _

Tony ignored the horrified recognition on the faces of the two spies, and Steve was filled in by Yasha as Tony leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head.

“Hey, it’s not like they had a chance to fire it.  We were lucky they didn’t try, really.  They never would have given me the second dozen if they did.”

Natasha frowned.

“Why is that?”  She asked.

Tony scoffed.

“It didn’t  _ work. _  It would have gone  _ maybe _ a hundred feet and then plummeted back to earth, blowing up their own caves.  And us.”

There was silence for a minute, and everyone but Yasha (who had heard this story before, and already yelled his fill over it) looked concerned, and a little horrified.

“That probably would have killed you too, Tony,” Bruce pointed out gently.

Tony just shrugged, as unbothered as he was when he’d thought of the plan.

“They kidnapped me.  I was more concerned with them  _ not _ living than anything else, at the moment.  Besides, I have self-destructive tendencies, if you haven’t noticed.”

“So you are aware of those,” Clint mumbled under his breath, but Tony ignored him.

“It worked out, anyway.”

“We really need to work on your definition of that,” Clint pitched in, louder than before.

Tony was saved from replying by JARVIS alerting them to a call for the Avengers.

When everyone but Tony stood, Tony leveled a betrayed look at Yasha and then followed suit, cracking his knuckles and stretching his neck.

“Fine, fine, be like that,” he muttered.  “I still maintain I’m just a consultant.  I don’t join clubs.”

Natasha rolled her eyes with her back turned so no one could see, and walked over to put her hand on Tony’s shoulder.

“You’re a consulting Avenger,  _ and _ my minion-in-training.  So get your armor or you won’t be able to catch the idiots when they jump off buildings without looking.”

_ “Hey!” _  Clint and Steve both said in unison, while Bruce hid a smile behind his hand.

Tony rolled his eyes, but motioned for JARVIS to summon the latest version of his suit.

“You’re just lucky I like you all.  But I’m not forgetting about that minion comment-- I don’t forget things, I’m like an elephant-- and we’re going to have  _ words _ about that later.”

Tony squinted dramatically at Natasha before his suit arrived.

“His ego is like an elephant, at least,” Clint muttered under his breath again, and Natasha whacked him lightly upside the head for it.

_ “Ow,” _ he muttered.

(Well.  Maybe not that lightly.)

“Avengers, move out,” Yasha interrupted their antics, rolling his eyes.

Steve looked only a little put out that his old friend stole his line, and they all headed for the quinjet on the roof.

Yasha waited for Tony to pass him, and they walked into the jet together, Yasha’s hand on the suit’s shoulder.

“Try not to blow up too much of downtown this time?”  Yasha muttered, and Tony sent him an offended look.

“You-- no, you don’t even start.  That was Clint last time, and  _ you _ before that!”

JARVIS interrupted to explain the situation they were all headed off to fight, and the argument was cut short by groans.

“Aww, man,  _ no,” _ Clint groaned.  “Not giant squid  _ again.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I’m guessing some of you hoped for a slightly less confrontational first official meeting between Tony and the Avengers, but... yeah, it’s not like Steve would be particularly happy about a kid fighting (even though he’s a massive hypocrite, Mr. I-Lied-On-My-Army-Forms-Because-I-Wanted-To-Fight). He’s getting over it, as you can see.
> 
> (Oh, and it didn’t quite make it into this chapter, but Pepper also wrangles AI’s lawyers into bringing James Barnes back from the dead, too-- although Yasha still keeps the fake documents he has, naming himself as Yasha Winters, too. Stealing the last name from the many fics I think I’ve seen use it. XP)
> 
> And yes, I think there probably will be a sequel to this, but not immediately, since I tend to plan fics while I’m writing other ones. So most likely, I’ll start something new while I plan a sequel. I think I have enough major plot points to come up with something interesting!
> 
> Next (last! D:) Chapter: This was the happy ending for this fic. All that remains is one more scene from the past, which is worth remembering, even if no one else does. (And it’s been written since BEFORE I PUBLISHED THE FIRST CHAPTER, so I’m dying to finally get to see the reactions!)


	23. That Day in the Snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The happy ending was last chapter. This?
> 
> This is a memory that's worth remembering, even if no one else does.

Tony Stark.

Only son of Howard Stark and his younger wife, Maria, very late in their marriage, when biology finally made Howard realize time was running out to have an heir.

Howard had spent the better part of his life looking for Captain America after he froze in the ice, and was never particularly interested in actually being a father, but if nothing else, he knew it meant someone would carry on his name, and his search for the missing-and-generally-presumed-dead captain.

Howard only had three years to fail at being a good father, however, before someone ensured that was no longer an issue, and Tony Stark’s life took an abrupt turn.

\---

“It’s cold.”

The Winter Soldier did not respond to the comment.  It served no purpose.  The agent speaking was not one of his handlers, merely mission support, and he had not been ordered to engage in conversation with the man.

The agent tried four more times to initiate a discussion before the car came into view.

“Target sighted,” the Soldier reported, and the agent focused on the targets through his binoculars.  The Soldier brought the couple, a man and a woman, into the crosshairs of his sniper rifle.

The targets were husband and wife, and the man was driving at what the Soldier estimated was twice the speed limit displayed on the tiny signs below.  An unnecessary hazard, the Soldier thought, although his handlers found the habit useful - it would make his involvement easier to hide.

Not that he cared either way.  The Soldier was a weapon.  He did not need to be concerned with the aftermath of his missions.

“You are authorized to fire when you have the shot,” the agent said, and the Soldier slowed his breathing even more than usual as he readied the shot.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breathe out.

Hold.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breathe out.

The sound of the shot rang out clearly in the otherwise quiet night, as the bullet sliced neatly into the front tire of the car.  Immediately, the car swerved and when the man couldn’t control the motion, it toppled over, rolling several times before coming to a stop, upside-down.

“Good shot,” the agent said, which the Soldier ignored again.  He never missed.

“Verify targets successfully terminated,” the agent added, obviously repeating an order.

The Soldier quickly disassembled his gun and packed it away in the case the agent held out for him, then marched quickly towards the toppled car as the agent jogged behind to keep up.

When he knelt down next to the car and peered in at the couple inside, the woman was clearly dead, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle, and the man was bleeding severely from several cuts on his head and sections of his dress shirt were already dark with blood.

Internal organ damage, he diagnosed.

The Soldier estimated he would die of his injuries in between thirty minutes to an hour.

After a moment of pained gasping, while the Soldier made his observations, the man’s eyes focused on the Soldier.

“ _ You _ ,” he gasped, choking slightly on blood in his mouth, which he spat out.

“You’re supposed to be  _ dead _ ,” the man added.

Suddenly the agent behind the Soldier seemed frantic, speaking into his comm in sentences too panicked for the Soldier to completely follow.

He understood enough, however, to gather than the Soldier had met the target in the past, which he was not supposed to remember.

That meant the chair, the Soldier knew, and typically punishment beforehand, for being recognized, even though the Soldier could not remember the target.

The Soldier wondered how the target knew him.

Without further delay, he reached for one of the many knives strapped to his body and calmly sliced the agent’s throat.  He died quickly, and the Soldier crushed his comm unit with his metal hand.

Then he knelt by the car again.

“How do you know the asset?”  The Soldier asked.

The man coughed and spat out blood again.

“What?”  He asked.

“I am the asset.  Codename Winter Soldier.  How do you know me,” he repeated.

The man’s eyes grew wider, and the Soldier did not understand the look on his face.  It was not an expression he could recall seeing on a target’s face before, although there was some measure of horror in it still.

“The Winter Soldier... is Bucky Barnes,” the man gasped, and halfway through, his laugh turned into a cough.  “I guess I failed Cap twice over, huh, Barnes?”

The Soldier frowned, and opened his mouth to speak again, when a slight motion in the back seat of the car drew his attention.

“Dad?”  A small voice said.

The man’s eyes widened, as if he’d not expected the voice either.

With one arm, he reached out until he could grab the Soldier’s arm.

The grip was feeble, but the Soldier did not remove his arm from the target’s grasp, even as the target flinched when he realized the arm was metal.

“Save him,” the target demanded, a note of authority in his voice despite his diminishing life expectancy.  “Save my son.”

The Soldier frowned.

“The mission did not mention a third target,” he said, and the man frowned and held onto his metal arm tighter.

“Promise me,” the target demanded.  “If there’s anything of Barnes in you left, who Steve Rogers thought so highly of, you have to save my son.”

The Soldier did not know the names Barnes or Rogers, but the target’s tone sounded almost like he  _ should _ know them.

For no apparent reason, the Soldier thought of scruffy hair, boney elbows, and sharp eyes.

He didn’t say anything, but retrieved his arm from the target’s grip in order to wrench open the backseat of the car and pull out the owner of the new voice.

It belonged to a male child, approximately two to four years of age.

The boy looked at the Soldier with a dazed expression on his face, before his eyes fixed on the metal arm.

“Whoa,” he mumbled, “‘s’it Christmas?”

The Soldier frowned.

“What is your name?”  He asked, but the boy was just frowned back at him.

“I... mmTony...,” he mumbled, and then he was unconscious again.

The Soldier turned back to the target, who was watching him with unfocused eyes.

“Save him,” the target repeated again.

“What is his name?”

The target looked slightly relieved, a small light glinting in his eyes even as they darkened and the dark stain on his shirt continued to spread.

“Tony Stark,” the target replied.

The Soldier sat with the unconscious boy as the target died, and continued to sit as snow began to fall, waiting for his handlers to collect him.

The boy woke, briefly, before they arrived.

“Who...who ‘re you?”  The kid slurred.

_ Suspected concussion _ , the Soldier thought.

“The asset is called the Winter Soldier,” he replied.

The boy frowned.

“‘S’not a name,” he mumbled, pushing himself upright.

One moment, the Soldier saw his scrawny form and dark hair, and the next he didn’t quite know where he was, but had flashes of blonde hair and a similarly small physique.  His entire body hurt, the Soldier realized, but particularly his left arm.

And for an instant, as his handlers approached in trucks down the road, the Soldier remembered.

“Say your name!”  He demanded, lurching forward and grabbing the boy by the arms.

The boy’s eyes shot open, still disoriented and barely conscious.

“Tony Stark,” he answered, voice slurring.

“Don’t forget it,” the sergeant said, urgency in his voice.  “Don’t let them take it from you.”

“What...what‘re you...talking...abou…”  Tony started to reply, but he didn’t have enough left in him to stay awake.

When the handlers arrived, the sergeant was already gone, and the Soldier was in his place again.

He refused to kill the boy when ordered, however, and he saw an agent take the boy away while three others began beating him as punishment for killing the agent sent with him, and disobeying the third kill order.

The Soldier did not care.

They finished the beating on the return trip and then made him walk to a room with the chair, where they beat him again before strapping him down, but he wasn’t paying attention.

It was just pain.

He ignored it, thinking of scruffy blonde hair and blue eyes, small fists flying-- not at the Soldier, which was strange-- and a laugh which usually was accompanied by a long period of coughing after it.

He kept getting distracted by the disjointed thoughts until the pain from the chair made thinking impossible.

The Soldier screamed.

\---

“I think he’s waking up.”

He didn’t recognize the voice, so he opened his eyes, then shut them quickly when he found a bright white light shining directly into his face.

“ _ Uuuuurrrrggggghhh _ ,” he protested the light, and he heard someone approach and turn it away.

This time, when he opened his eyes, after he blinked a few times, the light level was tolerable.

There was a woman, dressed like a nurse, with a man in dark clothes behind her.

The woman looked concerned, but the man looked unfriendly.

Stern, like his... father?

His head felt off.  Fuzzy.

“How are you feeling?  Can you tell us your name?”  The nurse asked him quietly.

He nodded, and cleared his throat, opening his mouth to reply.

It took him a moment to realize he didn’t know the answer.

“I... I don’t remember,” he said, and his voice cracked on the last word.

The nurse frowned at him, and he thought she looked concerned, before she glanced at the man, but when he felt himself start to gasp for air as panic set in, he felt the jab of a needle and everything faded away again.

“Do it again, just to make sure,” he thought he heard a man say.

\---

Tony Stark was declared officially dead, along with his parents, after Hydra agents planted the body of a young boy in the car with Howard and Maria Stark, one who fit the physical appearance and age of their son, and then set the car on fire.

Howard and Maria Stark were left unscarred just enough by the fire that no one questioned the identity of the boy in the back seat, scarred badly enough from the crash and the fire that no one realized the switch.

The estate passed to Edwin Jarvis, the Stark family butler, and Stark Industries was left to Howard’s business partner, Obadiah Stane.  Within a year, it would be renamed Stane Industries, but its stock prices would never be the same.

No one ever knew to ask about the young boy left in Hydra’s custody, brought in by the Winter Soldier, and with a mind as sharp as his father’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you enjoy the final punch in the feels? XD Neither Tony nor Yasha *ever* remember this. It was, however, the first or second chapter I wrote for this fic, before I ever posted anything.
> 
> There will be a proper sequel to this fic, once I figure out a title and a few more key events I can plot around. I'm behind on work, however, and in my last semester (finally!) so aside from some shorts-- probably including a bonus chapter for this fic-- the next long fic may not begin for a while (this summer, probably), since I need the time to ensure that my work gets done right.
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for staying with me for this fic (I can't believe it began almost a year ago!), and I hope you guys will hang around in the future! ^^


	24. Author's Note on Sequel

Sorry for getting anyone's hopes up for another surprise chapter-- I just have to explain one thing about the sequel I've been trying to write for this fic.

I've been working at a plot for a long sequel, and the only plot my muse has been able to produce is one I don't actually want to write.  It would have Ultron as either one of or the main villain, and I've written that enough to make me not really want to write him again.  Plus, as what seems to usually happen with Ultron, I really don't want to kill JARVIS in this fic.

Honestly, there were only two parts to that plot I really want to write, and the entire thing would be like 95% angst and characters getting kicked in the feels (mostly Tony).  Plus for various aspects to work, Yasha/Bucky wasn't coming out the way I wanted him to, and things would have been out of character for him in this verse if I made the most interesting parts of the story work.

I know people really seem to want more kid!Tony, but I don't think many of you would actually like that story if I wrote it.  And while if I really want to write something, I'll write it regardless of how many people I expect to read it; the kicker is I don't really want to write it.

So I'm sorry, but I'm violating my promise of a sequel unless my damn muse can actually come up with a plot that doesn't make me want to throw my laptop through the window.  (Although jeez, if any of you just really, really want to read Loki showing up again and giving terrible advice and then being, at various points in time, both a very good friend and also a terrible terrible person (that totally cancels out the nice bits-- that would noooot be a redemption fic), you'd like part of that plot.)

So for now I'm going to try and kick my muse into just writing anything, since she seems to have stuck her head in the sand for the last several months and I really need to get back into the habit of writing, period.

(I'm also going to visit other fandoms for once, while waiting for more Marvel movies to come out.)

My heartfelt apologies to anyone who is incredibly disappointed by the indefinite suspension of a sequel, but even I can't just command my muse to come up with something good on a very specific subject.  :(  I'll try to at least supply you with good stories in general...


End file.
